Obama pledges to pursue peace

AMMAN, Jordan — Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama stepped into the thicket of Mideast politics Tuesday, declaring in Jordan that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are strong enough internally to make the bold concessions necessary for peace.

Obama said he would work to bring the two sides together "starting from the minute I'm sworn into office." But he cautioned it is "unrealistic to expect that a U.S. president alone can suddenly snap his fingers and bring about peace in this region."

After meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah II, Obama flew to Israel for talks with Israeli leaders. He'll also meet with Palestinians.

Upon his arrival in Jerusalem, he spoke of a "historic and special relationship between the United States and Israel, one that cannot be broken" and one that he hoped to strengthen as president.

In downtown Jerusalem, a Palestinian attacker turned a construction vehicle into a fearsome weapon just hours before Obama's visit Tuesday, ramming a bus, overturning a car and injuring five people before he was shot dead.

The Palestinian rammed his yellow vehicle into a bus several times before the bus driver moved the vehicle to safety, then crushed a small car with his heavy scoop, overturned a sedan and repeatedly hit cars waiting at a stoplight before he was shot dead.

In Jordan, Obama made his comments on the struggle for Mideast peace within a few hours of stepping off a military aircraft — a presidential contender carrying body armor and wearing orange earplugs — following his tour of war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq with two fellow senators.

Standing alongside ancient mountaintop ruins with the Amman city skyline his memorable backdrop, Obama declined repeatedly to concede that President Bush's decision to dispatch 30,000 troops to Iraq in 2007 had succeeded. Still, he said, "I believe that the situation in Iraq is more secure than it was a year and a half ago."

The Illinois Democrat predicted at the time the troop increase was begun that it would not succeed.

On Tuesday, he also stood by his call for the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq over a 16-month period and said the United States, NATO and the Afghanistan government must do more to counter a resurgent Taliban and al-Qaida.

Back home, Republican rival John McCain renewed his criticism of Obama's pledge to pull U.S. combat troops out of Iraq by the second year of his administration if he wins the presidency.