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."

In Iraq today, the nation's most powerful politicians -- including al-Maliki, a Shiite, and Kurdish and Sunni leaders -- went on national television to call for calm. But sectarian violence raged on.

Later, al-Maliki visited Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood, the scene of a car bomb massacre Thursday by Sunni insurgents, to express condolences to the relatives of some of the 230 victims. As he drove away, his motorcade was stoned.

Sadr City, a Shiite stronghold, is where al-Maliki is supposed to draw his support.

Al-Maliki has been under pressure from the United States to crack down on the militias. But those militias are attached to the Shiite political parties in his own government and are part of his own political base. They have infiltrated the police and, to a lesser extent, the army.

The White House went into Iraq believing toppling Saddam Hussein would cure the region's ills, but now seems willing to work on a more comprehensive solution.

In exchange, it wants Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia -- Iraq's Sunni-dominated neighbors -- to use their influence with Iraq's Sunni insurgents.

"What we need is a reduction of violence in order to give politics a chance," said Vali Nasr, a professor at the Naval Post Graduate School. "And with that, Iran can help with the Shiites, and the Sunni governments in the region can help with the insurgents."

But far from helping, Iran's Shiite government is believed to have been fomenting unrest in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. The question now is whether the Bush administration will try to engage Iran, as the Iraq Study Group is expected to recommend, or try to contain it, as many believe the White House would prefer.

ABC News' Geoff Morrell in Washington and Hilary Brown in Baghdad contributed to this report.