In Middle East, 'birth pangs' get even more painful

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Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called events from Somalia to Afghanistan the "birth pangs of a new Middle East," but recent events across the region and a stark warning from a top terrorist leader yesterday indicate the labor will be long, painful and beset by unexpected complications.

Al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri issued a call for a global Muslim holy war to exploit the Israeli-Hezbollah clash.

In a videotaped message broadcast on the Al Jazeera network, Osama bin Laden's top aide called on Muslims to reclaim all the land he said had been lost to Israel and its Western backers.

"This is a holy war for the sake of God and will last until our religion prevails from Spain to Iraq," the Egyptian-born al-Zawahri said.

The outbreak of regional violence this month is proving only the latest obstacle to President Bush's vision of a transformed Middle East and a post-September 11 political revolution in the crescent of Muslim states from Central Asia to North Africa.

Instead of a new cadre of democratic governments friendly to the West and at peace with Israel, the region now features at least four countries -- Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Lebanon -- in which the government is struggling to establish control and carry out the basic functions of a sovereign state.

Israel and the United States have thus far failed to curb the Islamic militant Hamas and Hezbollah movements, and Iran, seen by many as the one unambiguous winner in the recent crises, is the one government implacably hostile to the Washington's agenda in the region.

"What is happening in the region is destructive chaos, not creative chaos," Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak told reporters in Cairo Tuesday.

Saudi King Abdullah has appealed directly to President Bush to try to end the Lebanon fighting, warning it could spark a larger conflict.

"Saudi Arabia warns everybody that if the peace option fails because of Israeli arrogance, there will be no other option but war," the king said in a statement this week. "No one can predict what will happen if things get out of control."