When without delay means when you're ready:There is something contrived about Bush's demands on Israel. Analysis by Gay Alcorn in Washington.

Look, we mean it. We really mean it. OK, this time we really, really mean it.

There was something comical about George Bush's furrowed brow as he stabbed the air and said that when he told Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to withdraw his troops from Palestinian-controlled areas - a demand first made last Thursday, then again on Saturday, when he added "without delay" - the leader of the free world expected to be heeded.

"I meant what I said to the Prime Minster of Israel," he insisted on Monday. "I expect there to be withdrawal without delay."

Mr Bush sounded like a hapless parent who had lost control of an unruly child and whose increasingly shrill demands have less and less impact. Dragged into the Middle East quagmire, Mr Bush has said that he, like former president Bill Clinton, is determined to be a peacemaker.