This is why no one expected for the democratically elected Iraqi government to signapeacetreaty with Israel or even end Iraq's official state of war with the Jewish state.
Clinton said before traveling to Asia last week that if North Korea moved ahead with denuclearization, the United States would be prepared to normalize relations and signapeacetreaty on the Korean Peninsula.
And at a regional trade summit in Vladivostok this month, Japan attempted to improve relations with Russia, a neighbour with whom it has yet to signapeacetreaty ending the second world war.
Indeed, even if the outgoing Bush administration and the lame duck Olmert government manage to signapeacetreaty with the increasingly powerless remnants of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, that achievement is liable to be quickly eclipsed by violence that will follow the signing ceremony.
What most concerns Netanyahu these days is that the US will fail to block a Palestinian bid to have the Security Council recognize a Palestinian state in all of Judea and Samaria and in large swathes of Jerusalem even if the Palestinians refuse to signapeacetreaty with Israel.
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Mr Putin - who also met on Friday - agreed to boost joint work on energy projects, and reaffirmed the need to signa post-World War II peacetreaty.
In 2006 its campaign to get a million Egyptians to signa petition demanding the abrogation of Egypt's peacetreaty with Israel received international attention.