WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney is retracing steps he took as defense secretary in 1990 when he toured the Arab world to rally support for a campaign against Iraq. This time, on another mission for another President Bush, he is likely to find the political landscape more complicated.

Cheney will brief Persian Gulf leaders on the next phase in the U.S.-led war on terrorism. But the visit easily could be dominated by an issue with more immediacy to the region: the intensifying spiral of Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Since Bush's "axis of evil" speech in January, Bush administration officials have been much more forceful in their insistence on a regime change in Baghdad. Cheney probably will find little enthusiasm among his Arab hosts for moving the war on terror into their own backyard at this time, especially with the Israeli-Palestinian eruption.

Cheney is leaving today on a 10-day, 12-country tour that includes stops in key Arab states as well as Israel. On his first overseas trip as vice president, Cheney also will visit Britain and Turkey.

Cheney's assignment, the president declared, includes looking Middle Eastern leaders "in the eye and letting them know that when we say we're going to fight terror, we mean it."