Mare Nostrum

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There is strength in diversity, so the adage goes. But such diversity is somewhat difficult to fathom. East meets West, North meets South. Islam and secularism meet. Syrians and Israelis talk about talks, or the possibility of talks. But all this diversity leaves the Germans miffed for not being briefed and consulted by their French hosts, and the Turks resentful and fearful that the new Gaulic Club Med is a ploy to keep them out of Europe.

The list of grievances goes on and on. However, most important of all is that we must not fool ourselves into believing that all is well unless the United States gets to have its say. The superpower, whether we like it or not, cannot be excluded from the Club Med. Yes, the US must not literally be a fully-fledged member of the Union for the Mediterranean, but it is bound to have a great influence behind the scene. Washington is the puppeteer, its allies Western or otherwise are the puppets, and the world is Washington's stage.

We can only hope that Club Med has reserved its penthouse suite for Uncle Sam, licking his wounds after the deaths on Sunday of nine United States soldiers at a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan close to the Pakistan border.

The US might be a superpower, but it is not invincible. On top of this is the alarming news that capitalist America must bail out two of its most important property firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Will wonders never cease? It demonstrates that the state of the American economy is indeed in dire straits. Not only are American voters worried, but the whole wide world looks on in alarm.

The Democratic nominee Senator Barack Obama and his top advisers have repeatedly warned that the situation in Afghanistan and the frontier regions of Pakistan is critical. This surely must have a major impact on the US presidential elections, despite the fact that the economy has replaced the Iraq war as the issue about which voters are most concerned. Afghanistan, alas, required much more attention and resources than US President George W Bush has been willing to give it.

The nine US soldiers died when about 200 Taliban insurgents, reportedly from Pakistan, as well as Afghanistan, penetrated a recently built outpost in Kunar province in a coordinated assault. Fifteen other US troops and four Afghan army soldiers were also wounded in the raid. Recent incidents point to the growing military prowess of the Afghan insurgents, marked first by a major jailbreak in Kandahar in June and the influx of Taliban fighters into Kandahar Province in the south. The US death toll was the largest since 16 troops were killed when a military helicopter was shot down by the Taliban in Kunar three years ago. Obama and his advisers are right. Afghanistan is key to understanding the new world situation.

The visit to Afghanistan by the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, to Pakistan -- his fourth so far this year -- serves to highlight growing US unease, even exasperation, with its own inability to contain the rising power of the Taliban forces in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The omens bode ill. The power of militant Islamists might well spread to the rest of the world, and not just the Muslim world. They may even be found under your bed soon.

How does that fit in with the rosy world of the Mediterranean? Last Sunday's summit mattered, but let us get serious. Let us focus now on the vital concerns that dominate our lives: the food and fuel crises, the state of the American economy, the prowess of political Islam and a host of other challenges not least the Arab-Israeli conflict and the revival of the stalled Middle East peace process.