King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia warned in an interview with Spain's El Pais newspaper earlier this week that the conflicts in Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine could "provoke an explosion that will not be restricted to the region, but will have global dimensions.

" The Saudi leader was not the first to signal the potential for the Middle East's multiple crises to spill over into other parts of the world, but given the chaos and mounting instability that have characterized the region for the past several years, it would be foolhardy to dismiss his message as a repetition or his tone as alarmist. On the contrary, the wise and prudent reaction is to determine the causes of the Middle East's worsening condition in hopes of improving it. Unfortunately for U.S. President George W. Bush, much of the blame for the region's worrisome state can fairly be placed at his feet. This is not to absolve the Middle East's own regimes of responsibility for their individual and collective failures, only to acknowledge the fact that because America's influence is so pervasive, the implications of its errors are more far-reaching than those of any other actor. Simply put, the Bush administration lacks a coherent policy in this part of the world - and the results are plain for all to see. Especially on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that provides most of the fuel for the region's chronic instability, the Bush White House has steadfastly refused to become usefully engaged, intervening only on occasion, and usually for the wrong reasons at the wrong times. Now the Bush administration is trying to breathe new life into hopes for the creation of an independent Palestinian state, but doing so in the wake of the violent split between Hamas and Fatah smacks of yet another attempt to impose a lopsided peace. The leaders of three of America's most crucial clients - Egypt, Israel and Jordan - are planning to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah next week, and all signs point to a combination of bribery and bullying. The late Yasser Arafat managed to resist similar pressure, and instead of asking themselves why he did so, the Americans and their underlings seem fixated on the possibilities opened up by the presence of the incalculably weaker - and newly shaken - Abbas. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's domestic political position is manifestly too fragile for him to go out on any diplomatic limbs by offering anything like a fair deal to the Palestinians, even if his recently resurrected predecessor, Ehud Barak, were to support him. Only an American president could possibly provide the necessary cover, and Bush shows no sign of being the one to do the job. It might be possible to coerce Abbas into accepting a humiliating "peace," but no one should have any illusions that his people will honor a unilateral surrender of their rights - or that the rest of the region would view it as anything but the latest evidence of American duplicity. (Source: dailystar.com