Jordan King: 3 Mideast Civil Wars Possible in 2007

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is it a civil war in Iraq right now?

KING ABDULLAH: Well, George, the difficulty that we're tackling with here is, we're juggling with the strong potential of three civil wars in the region, whether it's the Palestinians, that of Lebanon or of Iraq.

And I hope that my discussions, at least, with the president will be to provide whatever we can do for the Iraqi people. But at the same time, we do want to concentrate ourselves on the core issues, which we believe are the Palestinians and the Palestinian peace process, because that is a must today, as well as the tremendous concern we've had over the past several days, what's happening in Lebanon.

And we could possibly imagine going into 2007 and having three civil wars on our hands. And therefore, it is time that we really take a strong step forward as part of the international community and make sure we avert the Middle East from a tremendous crisis that I fear, and I see could possibly happen in 2007.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That is a frightening prospect, the prospect of three civil wars. All three of those societies -- Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority -- have had elections over the last couple of years. And now we're seeing the prospect of civil war.

Could the United States push too hard, too fast for democracy?

KING ABDULLAH: The issue is not whether you're pushing one agenda or another. The issue is we have not been able to deal with the core problem of the Middle East.

Now, I know people will say that there are several core problems in the Middle East. Obviously, the closest to American minds, because of your commitments of soldiers is Iraq.

But for the majority of us living in this part of the world, it has always been the Israeli-Palestinian, the Israeli-Arab problem.

And I fear that if we do not use the next couple of months to really be able to push the process forward, I don't believe that there will be anything to talk about. In other words, there will not be enough of circumstances to create a two-state solution -- in other words, Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and harmony.

If we don't solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem, then how can we ever solve the Israeli-Arab problem?