Chances for peace in the Middle East have been stagnating for so long now, any hopes for busting the logjam rest on perversely encouraging signs of fracas between Israel and its strategic sugar daddy, the United States.

So, since President Barack Obama and Israel's on-again, off-again Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu emerged from their first meeting today looking less than palsy-walsy, it could be a sign things are looking up.

At the photo op, Obama said the only solution to unending conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is prefaced with "two-state"; Netanyahu cold-shoulders the idea. But Netanyahu did say he wants to kick off talks with Palestinians "immediately", perhaps spurred by Obama's point that "Israel's going to have to take some difficult steps" - including a halt to new settlements on the West Bank and helping resolve a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

But it's on the subject of Iran - and what to do about the restive Persian nation's supposed preparations to gird itself with nuclear weapons - that Obama showed promise merely by not rolling over and playing lap-doggie to an Israeli leader. That's been a bad habit of American presidents since Kennedy.

Although Netanyahu and the Israelis have averred constantly that such an approach will be fruitless, especially, they hope, if it never happens, Obama today reiterated his intentions to negotiate with Tehran, in an attempt to settle differences with horse-trading instead of bunker-busting. In the past few weeks, both Obama and defense secretary Robert Gates have all but rapped Israel's knuckles over its relentless threats to take out Iranian nuclear reactors via aerial attack. That alone is a major step back from our usual AIPAC-directed routine - parroting Israeli accusations and promising to back up whatever catastrophic stunt the Jewish state pulls next.

Nevertheless, as Forbes sums it up:

...Sometimes discord can be a good thing. It is good that Obama is not afraid to publicly disagree with Israel's prime minister, and it is also good that Netanyahu was not able to dodge the issue of Palestine statehood in favor of the Iranian threat. It also paves the way for a "work-in-progress" between Israel and the U.S., given that Obama will have the Netanyahu card to play when talking with Egypt's president on May 26 and Mahmoud Abbas on May 28. The real discussions have barely begun.

Obama's one, tiny concession was a loose timeline for the Iran talks to show progress; he mentioned the end of the year as a target date, albeit one merely suggested. His language was far removed from leaked reports last week that the President was giving diplomacy until fall before putting all options - including those military - back on the table.

Despite reports earlier this year that Netanyahu and his cabinet consider Obama a novice who can be buffaloed easily, the Israeli leader is good enough a politician to realize that Obama has - oh - maybe 10 times the standing that he himself enjoys at the moment. And that's not just in the United States, but across the globe. Obama has become the statesman of the hour; if guitars were the measure of the man, Obama is Jimi Hendrix to Netanyahu's Tommy Smothers.

Setting aside Netanyahu's burly charisma deficit, much of this lop-sided dynamic stems from corrosion of Israel's standing in the world since its outrageous assault on Gaza last winter and Netanyahu's inclusion to cabinet-level position such radical Zionists as Avigdor Lieberman.

At the other end of the court, the United States has its hands full with deteriorating strategies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the presence of tangible nukes is the stuff of nightmare should the region slide into full-out, failed-state chaos.

That perilous wild card may end up favoring Netanyahu, who can always fall back on the age-old Israeli strategy of stringing out negotiations with Palestinians and its neighbors until they just fade away, or until frustration sparks bloodletting followed by retaliation, that "shoot-counter-shoot" paradigm so reliably a part of Mideast misery for so very long now.