By CLAUDE SALHANI

U.S. President George W. Bush and the neo-conservatives wanted to change the map of the Middle East; in that they have succeeded. But what they did not count on was that the changes would be mapped by Syria and Iran, two countries that the Bush administration regards as rogue states and supporters of terrorism.

Starting with Iraq, the administration had hoped that after overthrowing the regime of Saddam Hussein a democratic Iraq would serve as a model for the rest of the Arab Middle East to follow. Indeed, Iraq has become a model, but again not in any way the administration hoped or anticipated.

The civil war in Iraq -- which is not officially recognized as one -- is gradually ripping the country apart. A well-defined schism is surely taking shape, separating the country's Shiite and Sunni communities who are engaged in a never-ending cycle of revenge, kidnapping and killings and counter-killings. Last week they took to bombing each other's mosques, destroying in the process the Golden Mosque in Samara, one of Iraq's central religious symbols and holiest sites for Shiite Muslims. A similar attack last year destroyed the dome. Not to mention the Kurds who have already distanced themselves from Baghdad.

The civil war in Iraq is being mirrored in the Palestinian territories, while Lebanon sits on the verge of falling into the trap and re-igniting its internal conflict.

"We have long dreamed of an independent Palestinian state," a Palestinian American from Jerusalem told United Press International. "Well, we now have two states for the price of one," she added sarcastically.

The new reality in the Middle East after a week of heavy fighting between opposing Palestinian factions in the Palestinian territories is that the Islamist Hamas movement is now the new master of Gaza after routing out supporters of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his secular Fatah militants. This represents a major victory for both Syria and Iran, who support, finance and supply weapons and logistics to Hamas.

The new reality in the Middle East is that Hamas' victory comes about as the result of years of misguided U.S. and Israeli foreign policies. The Bush administration elected to ignore the Palestinian-Israeli dispute until it was a day late and a dollar short. And Israel's decision not to deal with Abbas' predecessor, Yasser Arafat, untrustworthy as he may have been to the Israelis, has contributed to the current morass in the Palestinian territories.

Despite his many shortcomings, at least Arafat was, to a certain degree, able to control the situation in the PA far better than Abbas. The current Palestinian president lacks the street smarts of his predecessor.

The new reality in the Middle East is that there now exists a radical, militant "Hamasistan" sitting on Israel's southern border, where more than 1.5 million people are trapped in some of the worst socio-economic conditions found anywhere on the planet today. It may have become a cliche, but it's worth repeating: deteriorating conditions in Gaza have turned the Strip into the perfect breeding ground for al-Qaida recruits.

The new reality in the Middle East is that the Palestinians have wasted yet another opportunity to achieve statehood and to join the world community.

In Lebanon, the new reality is that the Syrian-backed opposition is only one car bomb away from obtaining the majority of seats in parliament.

The assassination of Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel last November, followed by the killing last week of Walid Eido, a Beirut member of parliament, a former judge, and a member of the anti-Syrian coalition, brings the pro-government alliance led by Prime Minister Fouad Siniora dangerously close to losing the majority.

Siniora's government, which includes supporters of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated in a similar manner, though with a far more powerful bomb, on Feb. 14, 2005, enjoys the support of the United States -- support that makes it a target of America's enemies in the region.

"Syria has instituted a systematic decapitation of Lebanon," Sajjan M. Gohel, director of international security with the London-based Asia-Pacific Foundation, told UPI.

And while Siniora's government struggles in more than one way to stay alive and maintain its majority, fighting in the north of the country between the Lebanese army and a group calling itself Fatah al-Islam is edging Lebanon ever closer to the abyss. More than 60 Lebanese soldiers have lost their lives in the fighting around the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared. A slew of explosions over the past few months targeting haphazardly both Christian and Muslim areas have added to the tension. Then again, perhaps those explosions were not so random.

Four years after U.S. troops first entered Iraq, hoping to bring about change to the Middle East, the region is undergoing some of its most radical changes. Those changes, however, are far from what Washington had wished for. These changes are also far from what the majority of the people of the region had wished for; military interventions, dictatorships, corruption, theocratic regimes, Islamic extremism, terrorism and al-Qaida and the Taliban.

(UPI)