U.S. Steps Up Iraq Diplomacy Amid Dire Predictions

Nov. 26, 2006 — -- President Bush heads to the Middle East this week for what some are calling a "crisis" summit on Iraq -- as a key U.S. ally in the region, King Abdullah of Jordan, warns that the future of the entire region hangs in the balance.

Bush will travel to Jordan to meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Jordan's King Abdullah.

Desperate for help with Iraq, the Bush administration is fanning out across the Middle East. Vice President Dick Cheney called on the Saudis Saturday. And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet with the Egyptians this week.

Officials also are hoping for suggestions on Iraq in a report due from the Iraq Study Group headed by former Secretary of State James Baker.

"The patient, you know, is flat lining," said David Rothkopf of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The situation is getting worse. And everybody is scrambling to do whatever they can to stabilize the situation."

As of today, the United States has been at war in Iraq for three years, eight months and seven days. That is the exact length of the American involvement in World War II.

Today, King Abdullah told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos on "This Week" that Iraq is part of a regional crisis requiring a regional solution.

"We're juggling with the strong potential of three civil wars in the region," he said, adding that Iraq needs to be addressed in conjunction with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the turmoil in Lebanon.

"It is time that we really take a strong step forward as part of the international community," Abdullah said, "and make sure we avert the Middle East from a tremendous crisis that I fear and I see could possibly happen in 2007."

But critics question whether al-Maliki is in control of events in Iraq, and wonder whether Bush's meeting will lead to solutions.

"The president of the United States is going to spend, what, two days with this fiction -- the fiction of an Iraqi government?" George Will said on "This Week." "The way we now define success, we're down to the most minimalist definition, which is: Success is a government in Baghdad that governs the country."