In the earlier part of this year King Abdullah ibn Hussein of Jordan warned of the great possibility that his region, the area that we know as the Middle East, was in great danger of seeing the eruption of three civil wars.At the time the only country in the region where one might agree that there was the potential of a civil war breaking out was the country of Iraq, where, when the King made his dire warning, we could see the outbreak of widespread violence had already taken on the form of a civil war, where the two main population groups the Shiite and the Sunni have engaged in widespread conflict with each other despite the Anglo-American invasion which was supposed to impose a democratic regime on that country.

The idea that a democratically elected government should be set up in Iraq was in fact the last policy statement put forward as a reason for the Anglo-American invasion. At the beginning it was alleged that the former regime of Saddam Hussein was in possession of weapons of mass destruction and therefore represented a threat to the peace of the world.

However at the conclusion of the military invasion no weapons of mass destruction were found and those who had conducted the invasion than claimed that the mission was to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein and create the conditions for the emergence of a democratic system in Iraq.

However with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein an old divide was exacerbated between that of the Sunnis, though 37 per cent of the population were the traditional rulers of Iraq, while the Shiites a majority population made up 60 per cent. This divide was based on religion, although Iraq under Saddam was in fact a secular nation. However with the old regime gone, the divide and conflict between the Sunnis and the Shiites, a conflict which started with the death of the Muslim prophet Muhammad and the struggle over who was going to be the leader of the Muslim faith and empire that had flown from the rise of Islam, a conflict that has raged for hundreds of years up until this day, has taken on its religious identity, but is in reality a political struggle for power. This the foreign invaders, the Americans and the British, did not take an account of and thus their military intervention is in danger of ultimately being judged as a failure, embroiled in a civil war.

The country of Lebanon is the second Middle East country that King Abdullah has warned of being the arena of a civil war in the region. Lebanon has in fact already experienced a bitter civil war. In 1975 there was an outbreak of civil war between conservative Christians and left leaning Muslims backed by Palestinian guerrillas led by the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).

A Syrian-dominated Arab peacekeeping force was sent in to enforce the peace between the warring factions, but Syria overstayed its welcome only being forced to withdraw it military last year in the wake of massive demonstrations protesting the assassination of a former popular Lebanese Prime Minister which most suspected Syria was behind.

In the south of Lebanon there was once the existence of a Palestinian control zone which was called Fatah land in which the PLO mounted attacks against Israel. After repeated Israeli invasions this mini Palestinian state was dismantled and its place taken by a long period of Israeli occupation before it too withdrew in the face of constant Lebanese resistance led by a group calling itself Hezbollah which means ‘Party of God’.

In July of last year an Hezbollah attack on Israeli soldiers led to deadly conflict between the two, during which 900 Lebanese civilians were killed as a result of Israeli air raids, hundreds more were wounded. The Israeli civilian loss was 33 people with just under 500 wounded. Hezbollah fired over 3,000 rockets into Israeli territory. Calls for support for a cease fire were ignored as Israel and its Allies principally, the United States had hoped that the Jewish State would smash Hezbollah for good, but the conflict ended inconclusively, although the southern part of Lebanon is now patrolled by the Lebanese Army and UN peace keepers, the first time the former has been able to assert Lebanese control of that part of its territory in years.

In recent times another flashpoint has revealed itself in the armed conflict between the Lebanese Army and Islamist guerrillas held up in Palestinian refugee camp, as you read this most recent conflict is still raging as a weak government attempts to hold on.

The last area of a possible civil war would seem to be the most improbable, yet we have seen it happen before our eyes. An open civil war between Palestinians which seem to have resulted into two Palestinian states — one on the West Bank controlled by Fatah, the long time Palestinian Liberation which lost control of the government to its rival Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip.

The whole idea of a Palestinian state was already a prospect that seemed to be an impossible dream over the question of how much land such a state could control, given that the state of Israel has put great restrictions on how much land a Palestinian state could control. Now as a result of a major split between themselves, it seems that the Palestinian dream of their own homeland has been deferred as a result of their own actions and inability to find Palestinian unity.

When King Abdullah made his predictions of the potential of three civil wars in the region, with the exception of Iraq no one foresaw the rise of the crisis in Lebanon or within the Palestinian territories.

He did not say how these conflicts will be resolved, he seemed to have been crying out for some outside intervention. But given the results of the intervention of outside interests in Iraq, the people of that benighted region would do well to look to themselves to solve their own problems.