Mideast govts ignore US, follow own rules

The governments of the Middle East, from Iran to Israel and beyond, are increasingly ignoring the wishes of a US administration which has only eight months left in office, going their own way in regional diplomacy.

US President George W. Bush's latest speech on Middle East policy, made in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh last week, shows how the gap has grown between what Washington would like and what is happening in the region.

It is part of a wider picture of Washington's declining clout, accelerated by its debilitating deployment of more than 100,000 troops to Iraq for the past five years.