The US Vice-President Dick Cheney will visit the Middle East today, to meet with Arab leaders and speak with US troops in the Gulf region.
A White House announcement said that on the upcoming trip, Cheney would meet with UAE President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, King Abdullah of Jordan, and President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.
Cheney will also go to Oman, Turkey, Israel, the West Bank and, most probably, Baghdad.
The White House said Cheney would discuss "key issues of mutual interest" with the leaders.
This visit comes after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's tour in the region recently to persuade Palestinian leaders to resume peace talks with Israel after a deadly Israeli military incursion into Gaza.
The hot issues on the US Administration's mind are connected to oil prices soaring to a record $110 a barrel amid mounting signs of US economic turbulence. President George W. Bush said that he was sending Vice-President Dick Cheney to the Middle East to raise concerns about oil prices and to press Israeli and Palestinian leaders to move toward peace.
The US wants to see an increase in oil production. It wants the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) to take into consideration that its biggest customer, the United States, has weakened, and the administration believes that more oil supply would help.
Cheney will convey this message as the Bush administration is struggling to revive an American economy that is sagging under the weight of a housing slump, rising prices and a credit crisis, and it has had little luck persuading Opec to increase production levels.
The security situation in Iraq improved for a while, but it has started deteriorating due to the absence of practical solutions approved by all the Iraqi political process players.
The US efforts and procedures taken to persuade Iran to back off from its highly controversial nuclear programme have failed miserably.
All these are issues which need to be addressed and taken care of.
So, does Cheney hold solutions to these serious problems? Or is his visit merely a continuation of debates with the US's friends in the region?
Peace process
Cheney will meet in Israel with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and in the West Bank with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, to urge both to "uphold their obligations" to move toward a peace settlement, a stated priority for Bush in his last few months in office.
Bush had sent Rice to the area recently to persuade Palestinian leaders to resume peace talks with Israel.
Cheney will also meet with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, to discuss oil prices that are hitting record highs, and oil production. When Bush visited Saudi Arabia in January, he urged Opec to increase production but Opec decided not to boost output.
Regional tensions would likely be discussed in Turkey, which recently staged a military offensive against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.
Cheney will also visit Oman, a significant non-Opec oil producer, and hold talks with its leader, Sultan Qaboos Bin Saeed, a respected intermediary between oil-producing and oil-consuming countries. Oman with its strategic location and status may be an excellent intermediary in the region where war fleets roam and oil vessels transit.
Does the US have new solutions for these problems which have become chronic in their nature?
This depends on the seriousness of the current US administration in bearing the responsibility for a new war or wars which will tip the balance in the region.
It is widely known that the US unwittingly creates crises for itself because of its unbalanced policies.
Will this unbalanced and unfair stance towards Israel and backing it unconditionally against the Palestinians, be corrected? Or will the US tread the road to additional and more violent problems in the region?
These questions are thrown up because of the ride the Middle East was taken for during the Bush Administration era.
Dr Mohammad Akef Jamal is an Iraqi writer based in Dubai.
