Bush's options limited in worsening Mideast crisis

Fri Jul 14, 2006 5:06pm ET
By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration, having stayed mostly on the sidelines during the latest Middle East crisis, now faces the threat of a broader regional conflict with few options for defusing it.

Distracted by the war in Iraq and preoccupied with Iran and North Korea, the U.S. government kept its distance as Israeli forces struck the Gaza Strip in recent weeks after Palestinian Hamas militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier.

But with fighting expanding to the Israel-Lebanon front and threatening to spread further, some Middle East experts say Washington's hands-off policy has only made matters worse.

"Disengagement has contributed to a deterioration of the situation and has put the United States in a position where it doesn't have the same kind of leverage it used to," said Dennis Ross, Middle East envoy under former President Bill Clinton.

Friends and critics alike have started calling on President George W. Bush, in Russia for a Group of Eight summit, to urgently revive Washington's role as regional peace-broker. Some are urging him to name a personal envoy like Colin Powell, his former secretary of state.

They fear that otherwise the violence could spiral out of control, drawing in Syria and Iran. Israel and the United States accuse the two of complicity in this week's raid by Lebanese Hizbollah fighters who captured two Israeli soldiers.

But Bush has limited room to maneuver diplomatically at a time when his administration is already overstretched on the foreign policy front.

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