When Middle East nations meet with members of the United Nations Security Council to stage a theatrical performance, they resort to the tried and tested formula of hosting a peace conference. Carefully scripted, the operetta gathers its list of primary performers - old and new stage hands who have made names for themselves in the ever-intriguing world of show business. They meet routinely before the show to argue semantics, minor and major changes to the script. They argue the need for secondary actors. They argue set design but the venue is pre-determined. Choreography comes into play - excuse the pun - as do stage rehearsals. Art and theater critics begin to heave and ho with expectation as audiences get ready for this primetime spectacle. And behold, the world (is a stage) awaits with muted breath the production of Annapolis. Annapolis is the revival production of Oslo I and II, Taba 1-6, and other featurettes that have delighted audiences since 1990. It's the brainchild of stage director George W. Bush and his assistant director Condi Rice; advance reviews of Annapolis, however, are not too promising. Billed as the Annapolis Middle East peace conference, the managed stage production does not live up to its name. Primarily formulated as a means to bring the Palestinians and Israelis together, Annapolis does not even begin to approach the problems of the entire Middle East. Since 2001, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been far overshadowed by other conflicts in the region. To the immediate north of Israel/Palestine lies Lebanon which is about to split asunder as political (and social-sectarian) strife has reached boiling point. The failure to agree on presidential elections as Iran, the US, and France play with their Lebanese marionettes in the family-run politicos will further bring to ruin the economy of the country and push closer to a civil war far worse than the 1975-1990 bloodbath. To the south east of Lebanon we have the Golan Heights, still a contentious issue for both the Israelis and the Syrians. And by all international standards, the Golan Heights is still a lucrative real estate gem that is very much under foreign occupation. To the north east of Syria lies Turkey, a Nato member which maintains durable relations with Israel and the Arab world but is facing a war of attrition of its own. Ankara has accused the US and its Kurdish allies in Iraq of arming and assisting the Workers Party (PKK) who have long waged a bloody war in north-eastern Turkey, pushing for an independent Kurdish state. The PKK question is of such importance to Turkey that it provides the former Ottoman state the perfect opportunity to invade northern Iraq. By doing so, the Turkish military will rout out the PKK, cut off vital supply lines, suffocate any notion of an independent Kurdistan and determine the fate of the divisive city of Kirkuk. I mention the term Ottoman because the Turks have let it be known that should a federated Iraq be divided along sectarian lines, the 1920 Treaties of Lausanne and Sevre (which carved up the Middle East after the French-English victories and formed the modern state of Iraq) will become null and void. Turkey will then lay claim to Vileyet Mosul, the former title of the entire north of Iraq. Much bloodshed a la Henry V would ensue. But Iraq itself is a quagmire into which all theories and expectations have sunk. The Bush administration does not know how to solve the Iraqi crisis; one day it supports allies, the next it supports the enemies of those allies. And with Blair, Howard, Aznar et al out of the picture, the coalition of the willing has become the coalition of the wilting. Iraq has a major humanitarian catastrophe on its hands, but shhh . best not to speak of it. There are six million Iraqi refugees both in and out of the country. Cholera is the new Al-Qaida, the economy is in shambles, and militias are the new overlords of the country. When Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned against invading Iraq he cautioned that instead of one dictator, Iraq would be run by hundreds of mini-dictators. And we see today that Mubarak had been right all along. To the east of Iraq is Iran which has been strengthening its army and wreaking havoc in Iraq; it sees its former war foe as a necessary buffer against the West. UN resolutions and ElBaradeis come and go but the chances of confrontation are increasing. Israel has threatened to hit Iran. Iran has threatened to hit Israel and several Arab capitals, incidentally. Then we have the Darfur region which is also on the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe as rebel groups take on the Khartoum government and themselves. Couple that with the other South Sudan rebellion and the possibility of spillage into Chad and you have a nice keg of gunpowder on your hands. Move further south and east and you have the Somali crisis which after 15 years of international meddling is nowhere closer to a peaceful resolution than the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. This is the Middle East today - a cacophony of embattled countries beset by a constant trampling of human rights and the ever looming danger of extremism and terrorism. The New Middle East, as Condi declared while Beirut was burning. The New Middle East where democracy flourished in burned out Baghdad, a shell of a city run by empty slogans. Which is all the more surprising when we hear Arab analysts wholeheartedly paint a hopeful picture for the Annapolis theater. Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies analyst Emad Gad believes the outcome of Annapolis will be determined by the level of Arab attendance. He said: "If it is the ambassadors then the conference will have failed but if it involves the Arab foreign ministers then it will be a success. Had it been so easy, all Arab Summits in the past 30 years would have been resounding successes. However, Arab diplomacy has not been able to solve the Somalia, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Sudan crises, so why are we to expect that the attendance of foreign ministers will bring hope where there is none? In 1977, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said that the way to Jerusalem was through Baghdad. He had been alluding that reining in - or taking out - Baghdad would pave the way for a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2003, the Bush administration followed that path, but, unfortunately, the Middle East fell into even more conflict. As Baghdad lies in ruin, the Bush administration has abandoned that pitfall and reversed track believing that the way to . somewhere in the Middle East . lies through Jerusalem. That may have been the case pre-2003. Perhaps. But that is not the case today. The Palestinians themselves, for one, are an openly divided nation: secularism vs fundamentalism; Fatah vs Hamas, and so on. Arab and Iranian powers vie for influence in Palestine as they do in Lebanon and Iraq. Any "peace deal to emerge from Annapolis must take into consideration that Hamas - a formidable and sizable military and social entity - will reject it. The deal must also take into consideration that Bush has fallen into lame duck presidential territory and will go down in US history as the most blundering resident of the Oval Office. Furthermore, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is battling a corruption scandal of his own and may not be around to implement anything six months down the line. In December 2000, Yasser Arafat, Bill Clinton and Ehud Barak reached what many in the region believe to have been a most comprehensive peace deal; it was far-reaching and unprecedented. But within two months Barak had been defeated in the Israeli elections by Sharon, and Clinton waved bye-bye as he took his last parade out of the White House leaving Arafat alone. By the same token, 2008 is an election year in the US. Unfortunately, Annapolis is yet another stage production that is bound for the heap pile with its predecessors. Don't hold your breath for a sequel till well after the US presidential elections. FIRAS AL-ATRAQCHI is the former Editor of the Daily Star Egypt and currently a Middle East columnist.
