Fighting irrelevance and a ticking clock, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice embarks on yet another Middle East peacemaking trip, hoping to secure fragile Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and leave a viable process for the incoming Obama administration. With just 77 days left in office, Rice will be making her eighth trip yesterday to Israel and the Palestinian territories since the parties set a year-end goal of reaching a peace deal at last November's US-sponsored peace conference. She will also visit Egypt and Jordan to shore up Arab support for the talks. Meeting the target date for an agreement is now highly unlikely, especially with political uncertainty in Israel and the lame duck Bush administration's waning influence, but Rice intends to press the two sides to carry on and, if possible, come up with an outline of how they can move ahead after Jan 20. "We're going to try to put this process in the best possible place going forward so that whomever comes next can formulate their policies, take a look at the process, and possibly use it, take it further," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters. "Our focus is going to be on moving the process forward as far as it can be moved forward in a responsible way, while preserving the process," he said. "That has great value." The Israeli-Palestinian situation is one of several Middle East trouble spots that the Bush administration will bequeath to President-elect Barack Obama. The war in Iraq, Iran's nuclear program and troubles with Syria are among the most troublesome.