British Prime Minister Tony Blair's failure to achieve any progress in his tour of the Middle East was hardly unexpected, writes Doaa El-Bey Tony Blair's five-day tour to the Middle East, which ended Tuesday, contributed little to ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict or the escalating violence in Iraq. Blair's visit came amid concern over growing factional conflict after the convoy of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, from the ruling Hamas Party, was attacked in the Gaza Strip last Thursday. Hamas has blamed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah Party for the incident. The conflict between Fatah and Hamas has now spread to the West Bank. Securing the release of the captured Israeli soldier Jilhad Shalit, as well as drawing up a timetable for the withdrawal of the British troops from Iraq, were obviously high on Blair's agenda, issues he discussed with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak during the second leg of his tour. Mubarak has been involved in efforts to diffuse tensions between Hamas and Fatah and in negotiations to release captured Israeli soldiers. Blair openly backed Abbas's announcement of new elections. Ahead of his talks with Mubarak, he urged the international community to support the Palestinian president who, Blair said, had worked hard to try and bring about a unity government in which everyone, including Hamas, was represented. Abbas's call for elections was, however, immediately condemned by Hamas, which questions the legality of the move and has said it will boycott any early poll. The situation between the two rival parties remains tense, and could all too easily deteriorate, dragging the West Bank into the kind of armed conflict seen in Gaza. During private talks on Saturday Blair and Mubarak also discussed the situation in Iraq, Lebanon and Darfur alongside bilateral relations. The discussions, which had been expected to be low key, were aimed at gauging Mubarak's assessment of the situation in the region before Blair went on to meet Israeli and Palestinian leaders. There was no detailed official statement from the presidential office following the talks. Presidential spokesman Suleiman Awad said Egypt had called on the different Palestinian parties to set aside their differences and work to establish an independent Palestinian state. He added that Egypt had restated opposition to any division of Iraq and underlined the danger of Sunnis being marginalised. Blair also met the Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Mohamed Sayed Tantawi. While there was no official statement from Tantawi's office following the meeting, Blair's spokesman said the prime minister had wanted to assess the mood of the Egyptian and Arab street. There was no indication that they discussed the possibility of reopening inter-faith dialogue. Britain had shown an interest in opening dialogue, spearheaded by Prince Charles, who has played an active role in attempts to build bridges of trust and understanding among the clergy and followers of the three great religions. That Blair's efforts -- one of his last major foreign trips before he steps down as prime minister -- failed to move issues in the Middle East forward could be attributed to his lack of leverage given his support for the US-led war against Iraq and for Israel in its war against Lebanon. On the first leg of his tour he met his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who Blair sees as a key ally in the quest for an Israeli- Palestinian peace settlement that could stabilise the whole region. He also paid a surprise visit to Baghdad where he stood alongside Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki on Sunday. Both leaders said plans for the 7,000-strong British force deployed in the southern city of Basra to hand over control to Iraqi troops were going well but no date had been set for the transfer. He left Iraq for the West Bank where he met Abbas and reiterated his support for early elections. Then he met Ehud Olmert in Tel Aviv. The United Arab Emirates was the last leg in his tour. Despite the pessimism of most commentators, Blair insisted his peace mission was worth the effort. "Every time I see a deteriorating situation on the Palestinian side, I think that is a reason for redoubling our efforts to make progress, because otherwise we will have the situation where this two state solution becomes a vision everyone agrees to but it becomes harder and harder to achieve," he said at a joint news conference in the Turkish capital Ankara.
