The US House of Representatives' hearings Monday on the situation in Iraq were a sharp reminder that forests are made of trees, and staring closely at a single tree or a patch of land can only be useful when the full context of the forest is kept in sight. The specifics of the situation in Iraq have been analyzed and diagnosed in the American and global media in more detail than perhaps any other international issue since the end of the Cold War. We have now reached the stage, four and a half years after the Anglo-American invasion, where the talk on Iraq is about a few more months, moving a brigade of troops in or out of the country, moving the British troops in or out of Basra, and counting indicators of political progress by the Iraqi political establishment. Public opinion polls in Iraq and the United States offer wider-angle views of citizen sentiments.

Iraq is at a crucial juncture in its modern history, capable of moving toward stable statehood or long-term internal war. It could galvanize coherent regional cooperation among its neighbors, or push them into increasingly destructive proxy wars, inside Iraq and other lands. It could humble the Americans and British and dampen their enthusiasm for military adventures, or it could spur their penchant, along with Israel, for new assaults against other targets in the area, such as Iran, Syria, Gaza or Hizbullah. We are wise to see Iraq in the wider context of the whole Middle East.
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That broader regional perspective shows that the keys to peace and prosperity in Iraq are deeply linked to one's approach to other conflicts in the Middle East. The active conflicts and political tensions in Palestine-Israel, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Sudan and other countries in the Middle East are a consequences of three related factors that must be acknowledged and redressed in some coherent sequence, if progress is to be made on any of the problems we face. Foreign interference, domestic incompetence, and the consequence of six decades of Arab-Israeli warfare are the three main causes of the violence and instability that plague the Middle East.

Iraq reflects the convergence of all three factors as they have developed over the course of the past few decades. The situation is particularly dire these days. Yet a longer view shows that Iraq's predicament is only slightly more dramatic than those faced by, say, Lebanon, Palestine, Sudan and Somalia in recent decades - because the three root causes of their disarray are the same, if mixed in different proportions.

Another six months, one less brigade, eight more indicators and a garden of public opinion polls give us a better picture of the big tree that seems ready to fall on us; but the wider forest provides more useful insights into our greater dilemmas and dangers, along with hints on how to set things right again one day.