US intelligence sees no prospect of peace for the Middle East until 2020

The death of Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat can cause the events leading to reaching peace treaty between Israel and Palestine, concluded National Intelligence Council of the USA, Ha'aretz newspaper reports.

American intelligence raises doubts if such a peace treaty between Israel and Palestine can be reached before 2020. Nevertheless, if the majority of Palestinians support the idea of “cold peace” with Israel, this will become the most important event for the region since 1948.

Reaching peace treaty will improve the attitude of the Arabic countries to the USA and will deprive some Arabic leaders of the excuses they use for postponing reforming their countries. The prognoses of the progress of the situation in the Middle East were made by the specialists of National Intelligence council of the USA lead by CIA director George Tenet.

In their prognoses for the situation in the Middle East until 2020 American analysts state there is an opportunity of war between Israel and Syria or another Arabic countries. Weapons of mass destruction can be used during such a war, the intelligence officers believe. This can completely destroy the conditions for establishing peace between Israel and Palestine.

Americans are concerned with the possibility of changing the ruling regimes in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. US intelligence is sure that Islamic political parties will remain competitive to temporal movements as Marxism and Naserism. The analysts do not say about the prospects of the Islamic regime in Saudi Arabia – whether it will be preserved or replaced with another state model.

Source: http://lenta.ru/mideast/2003/12/17/predict/