A gathering storm.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Signals that the Middle East is spiraling toward regional crisis intensified last week with dangerous developments in Syria, Iran, Israel and the West Bank. Positive moves that kindled hopes for a resumption of the peace process have been smothered by bodies, blood and anti-Semitic belligerence.

Perhaps more worrisome, the Bush administration is so preoccupied domestically with a botched Supreme Court nomination and mounting opposition to the war in Iraq that it remains to be seen if it can respond effectively to the fires breaking out on all fronts in the Middle East.

In retaliation for an Islamic Jihad suicide bombing that killed five Israelis in the main outdoor market in Hadera, Israeli aircraft blew up a car carrying Islamic Jihad leader Shadi Mhanna in the Jabalya refugee camp. The missile strike also killed six other Palestinians and served notice to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that Israel's patience had run out with his ineffective efforts to rein in militants.

As if the bloody collapse of the promising truce between Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon weren't ominous enough, Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad provoked global outrage with a barbaric call for Israel to be "wiped off the map." World leaders were quick to condemn the unconscionable anti-Semitism, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair shot to the heart of the matter when he said, "Can you imagine a state like that with an attitude like that having a nuclear weapon?"

It isn't hard for Israelis to imagine such a scenario. Israel has more to fear than any other nation from a nuclear-armed Iran. Shocking as his remarks were, the radical Islamist Ahmadinejad was essentially echoing the doctrine of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution. Khomeini on numerous occasions called for the destruction of Israel by any means possible.

Iran represents more than a potential nuclear threat to Israel. Ahmadinejad heaped praise on Palestinian suicide bombers in his incendiary speech, just hours before the Islamic Jihad bombing in Hadera. Islamic Jihad receives much of its funding from Tehran. The small terrorist organization denies Israel's right to exist and has declared war on all Israelis, military and civilian.

Islamic Jihad has another significant regional connection: It's headquartered in Damascus, where it and like-minded groups such as Hezbollah receive support from President Bashar al-Assad's regime. But Syria now stands accused in a United Nations report of involvement in the February assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Assad insists Syria had nothing to do with Hariri's assassination, but he faces mounting international pressure to cooperate with the U.N. investigation.

The stakes for the United States couldn't be higher. Effective pressure and deft diplomacy could create positive changes in Syria's role in the volatile Middle East. Likewise, with Ahmadinejad's uncivilized threats bringing universal condemnation of Iran and renewed alarm about its nuclear ambitions, a window has opened for progress in containing Iran's nuclear program.

At the same time, without quick U.S. intervention, the February truce between Abbas and Sharon and the potential offered by Israel's pullout from Gaza are certain to be lost opportunities to restart peace talks.

These developments will test the diplomatic mettle of President Bush and the people he has chosen to help him govern. The president has made his task immeasurably harder with an unnecessary and divisive war that drains the treasury and isolates the nation from important allies. Furthermore, it isn't lost on those who seek to inflame tensions in the Middle East that the U.S. military's attention is fully focused on Iraq.

The president correctly maintains that peace in the Middle East is of vital importance to U.S. strategic interests, both military and economic. Events now demand a U.S. response designed to protect that peace.