Jordan's King Abdullah Says Region Is Facing Three Civil Wars

King Abdullah's comments come shortly after a tentative cease fire has been agreed upon between Israel and Palestine after nearly five months of bitter fighting in Gaza, the assassination of Pierre Gemeyal in Lebanon and a particularly bloody month in Iraq.

King Abdullah of Jordan's comments were that "We could possibly imagine going into 2007 and having three civil wars on our hands,'' said Abdullah on the ABC program "This Week'', he continued "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.''

The Middle East already seems to be in the birth pangs of a tremendous crisis, and averting it seems like something akin to changing the weather.

It's become an open secret, parts of the Middle East are collapsing before our very own eyes and each day the problem becomes just a little worse, the solution becomes even more elusive.

But we go on another day, thinking that somehow something will change without direct intervention and discussions.

The problem with the current leadership in the United States is their inability or refusal to engage in the diplomatic discourse that is in dire need if we are to avert crisis.

We also don't have real any allies in the Middle East besides a tentative relationship with Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

We do little to change this fact, in fact we seem to only encourage hatred, bigotry and outrage with ourselves. There has to be another way to do this.

Our leaders keep reminding us of the importance of the time we live in, but I think it is they who forget the true importance of this time and their role in diffusing the crisis.

So will anyone at least consider the words of Abdullah? I think anyone who is paying attention by now realizes that Iraq is in a civil war and the quicker we acknowledge and accept this fact the quicker we can access the problem. The longer we ignore it the deeper we sink into the quicksand.

This is what Civil War looks like in Iraq. This is what 60 years of poor foreign policy in the Middle East looks like. You have let the genie out of the bottle, no pun intended, and good luck putting the genie back inside.

But Abdullah touches base on something integral and sensitive when addressing Middle Eastern issues and that is the conflict between Israel and Palestine.

The ongoing conflict there is another road block that needs to be directly dealt with in an equal, fair and honest fashion rather than bias and discriminatory tactics we witness in order to promote the idea of peace in the Middle East.

President Bush cannot continue to escape away to countries that have little to do with the conflicts and talk to people who cannot help solve the problems if he is serious about anything other than leaving the Middle East in worse shape than when he found it.