President Bush is set to recommend that America sends up to 50,000 additional troops to Iraq in a last effort to stabilise the country, but will reject Tony Blair’s entreaties to start a new Middle East peace initiative.

The Prime Minister has emphasised to Mr Bush that solving the Israel-Palestine issue is the key to defeating extremism across the Middle East. But the US President has decided that a bold military push in Baghdad can still deliver “victory” in Iraq and defeat radicalism in the region.

Senior US officials now expect Mr Bush to deliver his new plan for Iraq early next month. They say that it will be an explicit rejection of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group’s two main recommendations: to pull out US combat troops by early 2008 and to intensify diplomatic efforts in the region.

Signs of the American move came as Mr Blair flew into Iraq yesterday to deliver a starkly realist message to British troops, emphasising that sectarian violence needed to be tackled wherever it was found.

In sharp contrast to last year’s upbeat Christmas message, he recognised that there were difficulties ahead but insisted that British troops would still be able to return home as Iraqi security forces were trained.

Mr Blair was on a whirlwind visit to Iraq, involving five helicopter journeys lasting over seven hours, as part of his five-day visit to the Middle East. He made the three-hour journey from Cairo to Baghdad on a Hercules aircraft for talks with Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, then travelled to Basra to meet British troops and receive a briefing on the security situation.

US Administration officials, most notably Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, made clear last week that the White House has already ruled out direct talks with Iran and Syria, an option favoured by Mr Blair and the study group, headed by James Baker, Secretary of State when Mr Bush’s father was President.

But the prevailing view in the Administration also runs counter to Mr Blair’s central contention, backed by the Baker report, that all problems in the Middle East — including Iraq — are inextricably linked to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The White House views them as separate issues and rejects the notion that the way to bring peace to Iraq is to forge a solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

With increasing hostility between Fatah and Hamas, the Palestinians’ two main factions, Mr Bush does not believe that a diplomatic push in the Middle East is likely to bear fruit in the near future. He still firmly believes that a stable Iraq is the key to defeating extremism across the region.

Senior US officials say that Mr Bush is embracing a politically controversial plan presented to him last week by General Jack Keane, a former army vice-chief of staff, and Frederick Kagan, of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank. The plan focuses on a military solution in Iraq, and rejects diplomacy with Iraq’s neighbours.

General Keane and Mr Kagan told Mr Bush that a political solution in Iraq was impossible until security was established, particularly in Baghdad. The executive summary of the plan they delivered to Mr Bush begins: “Victory is still an option in Iraq”, and officials at the discussion said that Mr Bush reacted extremely positively to their proposals.

Under the plan, a temporary addition of up to 50,000 troops — an idea promoted by John McCain, the Republican senator and probable 2008 presidential contender — would be made in Iraq. The primary goal would be to quash sectarian violence in Baghdad, clearing its most violent areas of the Shia militia and Sunni insurgents. US and Iraqi troops would then remain in those areas to hold and secure them for residents.

After Baghdad was secured, there would be a push to pacify the Sunni insurgency in Anbar province. Only then, the men told Mr Bush, could a political consensus between the Shia majority and Sunni minority have a chance of success.

“America, a country of 300 million people with a GDP of $12 trillion, and more than one million soldiers and Marines, can regain control of Iraq,” the plan states. It rules out immediate withdrawal, talking to Iran and Syria, and dramatically increasing US trainers of the Iraqi security forces.

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