Jordan king says West has no Middle East strategy

LONDON (Reuters) – The United States, Britain and Europe
have failed to adopt a comprehensive strategy to resolve the
problems of the Middle East, creating great concern about the
region’s future, Jordan’s King Abdullah said on Tuesday.

That is why Arab countries are trying to find a common
position to try to help stop the war between Israel and
Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas, the king said.

Outside powers have dealt with the region in a piecemeal
way, the king told BBC World. “Whether it’s the
Israeli-Palestinian one, whether it’s Lebanon or whether it’s
Iraq or the issue of Iran, I don’t think there’s an overall
strategy,” he said.

“This is why I think the Egyptians, the Jordanians and
Saudis with a lot of the Arab countries are trying to get a
unified position, because we’re not seeing the international
community dealing with the issues of the Middle East
comprehensively,” he added.

“The United States, Britain and the European countries as
well as Israel have got to listen to what we are saying,” he
said.

Arab officials were converging on the United Nations in New
York on Tuesday to insist that a U.S.-French resolution demand
an immediate Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon so that the
Lebanese army could move into southern Lebanon.

Their appeal has delayed a U.N. Security Council decision
on a draft resolution aimed at establishing a truce between
Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas and laying out terms for a
political settlement after 28 days of war.

Washington and Paris had hoped the resolution would be
adopted on Monday.

“We have Arab foreign ministers going to the U.N. at the
moment to try and bridge the differences between what the U.N.
is saying and what the Lebanese and our position is, and
hopefully there’ll be a positive outcome, but today as opposed
to tomorrow,” the king said.

He said the challenge was to build a new future for Lebanon
and avoid involving the rest of the region in the crisis.

“Do we have a chance to build a new page for Lebanon, a
good one or is it going to just go into this destructive mode
and suck the rest of us into this issue?” he asked.

“The core issue is the Israeli-Palestinian one and the
Israeli-Arab one,” he said. “For the next 20 years it’s going
to get worse and worse if we don’t solve the problems.”

He said the region would inevitably be radicalized further
if the violence continued in Lebanon and countries much further
afield would be sucked into an “abyss.”

“I really feel and fear for the future of the Middle East,”
he said.