WEST ASIA: Politicial crises bring linkages between separate conflicts into the foreground, both in political rhetoric and reality. Of nowhere is this more true than the Middle East - or more exactly, of "west Asia", if we take in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In 1991, after its victory in the Cold and Gulf wars, the US sponsored the Arab-Israeli negotiations in Madrid, which led on to the Oslo peace process and a decade of US-sponsored efforts effort to resolve that conflict. Six months on from September 11th this weekend, two US envoys are to set out for the region. Mr Dick Cheney will visit 10 states to canvass support for a possible US attack on Iraq, which it suspects of developing weapons of mass destruction to menace neighbouring states.
Mr Cheney's message is compromised by the sharp escalation of fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinians resisting their occupation, driven by the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon. He believes he must destroy the military capacity of the Palestinians if political talks on his terms are to start. He has operated in the shadow of tacit US approval for the proposition that the primary responsibility for stopping the violence lies with the Palestinian President, Yasser Arafat. But this week he overstepped the mark, earning a rebuke from Colin Powell and now another attempt by the US special envoy, Anthony Zinni, to bring a halt to the violence and a start to talking.
Hard line commentators in Washington have speculated that the US is developing plans to attack Iraq with Israeli support, following President Bush's "axis of evil" speech which linked that state with Iran and North Korea as sponsors of terrorism.
But however powerful the US is, it could hardly launch an invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein without close support from such states as Kuwait, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan and - ideally - Saudi Arabia. In the current issue of Foreign Affairs Kenneth Pollack, President Clinton's director of Gulf affairs from 1999 to 2001, argues in favour of an invasion, given that the containment of Iraq laid down eleven years ago has started to unravel because of the collapse of weapons inspection, which he says most members of the UN Security Council are not willing to reinstal.
An alternative policy of deterrence will not work against such a calculating foe. Pollack summarises the case for taking such a drastic step as follows: "The reason for even contemplating all the costs that an invasion would entail is the risk that a nuclear-armed Saddam might wreak havoc in his region and beyond, together with the certainty that he will acquire such weapons eventually if left unchecked".
It is as well to be aware of such a mindset in Washington, embracing not only members of the Bush administration but officials of the previous administration. Despite the disbelief in Europe that the US could contemplate such a unilateral attack there has been a growing realisation this week that it may do so, following indications from Tony Blair that the British would support the US.
That puts a different context on the relationship between Iraq, the "war against terrorism" and the Israeli-Palestinians conflict. Pollack admits that "toppling Saddam is not a necessary component of the war on terrorism" and that the threat from al-Qaeda is the more pressing one, as fierce fighting continued between their forces and US troops in west Afghanistan this week. While Saddam has made much of his connections with the Palestinians, in reality they are distinct issues, which he has exploited opportunistically.
Fred Halliday has coined the term "West Asia" in Two Hours that Shook the World, an excellent book on the September 11th crisis, which, he says, has three general features: linkages between hitherto separate conflicts; the crisis of the state in the region; and the emergence of a new, transnational and fundamentalist Islamism. But he cautions that "the Middle East consists of over two dozen states, with very different problems and capabilities and cannot be reduced to one single conflict, whatever the connections between these may be".
Among these connections for most of these states is the assumption of a link between US policy and Israeli behaviour.
US passivity in the face of Sharon's recent escalation of violence has inflamed them. This is the essential context for the emergence of the informal Saudi Arabian peace plan in recent weeks. It revives the land for peace formula incorporated in UN resolutions, calling on Israel to withdraw to its 1967 borders in return for normalisation of relations with the Arab world. Its novelty is to offer Israel recognition and to signal an independent initiative from what has hitherto been regarded as a US client state - certainly by al -Qaeda, which, as Halliday reminds us, regards the Saudis as their main enemy.
This week Syria and Iran indicated tentative approval for the plan, which could be put to an Arab League summit later this month. The Syrians are an important player, since their militarised regime depends so much on a continuation of the confrontation with Israel. They said they are satisfied the Saudi proposal contains reference to the right of 3.6 million Palestinian refugees to return to Israel and the status of Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital.
But just such conditions scuppered the Barak-Arafat negotiations in 2000. They are quite unacceptable to Sharon. Nonetheless, even he must take account of the appeal the promise of normalisation has for many Israelis, who retain a belief in a negotiated peace and are more and more disenchanted by his policies, which have failed to deliver peace and security.
EU officials have been doing their best to mediate in this increasingly dangerous confrontation, although they are hampered by divisions between the member-states over how much pressure to exert on Israel.
They insist that Arafat remains a crucial player and cannot take action against violence while he remains under Israeli house arrest in Ramallah. They demand that he must be released to attend the Arab League summit, if the Saudi proposal is to become a constructive offer.
They point out that European states have most to lose from deepening instability in the region; the EU provides most of the funding for the Palestinian Authority and will have to pay for reconstructing facilities destroyed in Israeli attacks.
This contrasting approach by the Europeans and Americans towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could play into their wider linkages following September 11th. A US attack on Iraq would divide them deeply if it is not consulted and agreed in advance through the UN. This is yet another impulse for the development of a more coherent EU foreign policy approach.