By the time this column is read, Ariel Sharon, the stroke-stricken Israeli prime minister, could be with us still. Or not. If the world's focus has suddenly shifted to this latest crisis in the Middle East, it is for good reason, and a ponderous one at that: the broader peace, or conflict, in the region, will no doubt affect the rest of the world. For such are the interconnections these days, in geopolitical and geoeconomic terms.

And then there's oil probably the world's most unwieldy element in every nation's calculus of its national interest. As oil's global reserves rapidly dry up and its price soars, for supply and war and terrorism reasons, only the most powerful nation-states will clamber over each other to source the black gold if their fuel-dependent industrial-age economies are to survive the 21st century turmoil of growing uncertainties.

But what has Ariel Sharon to do with oil? Everything. Just as he has had to do with the shape of Middle Eastern geopolitics. Like or loathe the man, Sharon's third and massive stroke is ill-timed for Israel as much as for the broader Middle East. There's another problem: the United States and its key western allies are, quite simply, losing their grip on the war in Iraq. Not that they have ever had the Iraq quagmire under control from day one, anymore than they have had on their war against terrorism. Never mind the West's and particularly the increasingly desperate George W. Bush's spin: his legitimacy and credibility is in tatters.

But Iraq is quickly descending into the kind of Balkan-isation the world had witnessed in Eastern Europe in the early 1990s. On the one hand this could boost Iran's growing influence in the region and so the world's oil price something the West does not want to see materialise but it could be just as powerless to stop. On the other hand another key US ally, Turkey, which is actively seeking membership to the exclusive European Union club, could become directly embroiled, externally and domestically, in the fallout from Iraq's post-Saddam Hussein disintegration.

As long as Sharon was running Israel, however divisively, his unremitting hawkish foreign policy posturing had kept the bloodletting Islamic Middle East in its place, and brought with this a degree of price stability to world oil supply in the absence of region-wide war, and a grudging peace in the Middle East. But Sharon's imminent demise, one way or another, suggests new equations are rapidly surfacing. Whoever replaces Sharon must be on the ball, as Sharon had been, because now Israel's arch enemies Syria, Iran, the Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and the radical Hamas among the Palestinians will surely try to extract a bloody advantage over Israel's growing political chaos.

Diehard firebrand

If these folks think it'll be plain sailing from here on in to wipe out the Israeli state without "the Bulldozer" Sharon, they have another thing coming. Sharon, who broke away from his mainstream Likud party to form Kadima, won't be coming back to run Israel. Kadima is Sharon's rebellion against the radical centre of Israeli politics, attracting moderate Likud voters and Labour hawks. At any rate, this leaves the former Labour prime minister, Shimon Peres, as Israel's next-most illustrious figure. But Peres is 82, hails from the left of Labour, and has never won an election in his own right.

There's Sharon's deputy, Ehud Olmert, now the acting prime minister, who could possibly keep Sharon's coalition together, but he is unpopular and has nowhere near Sharon's standing. Then there's Amir Peretz, the most left-wing leader in its history and a novice in national security but Israeli voters won't entrust him with their destiny.

Which leaves Likud and its hardline leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. And Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran don't want to mess with Netanyahu. He's diehard firebrand, as rightwing as they come, a warrior, like Sharon, but far more hawkish than Sharon. A Netanyahu win in March's poll, which could be postponed, would mean the end of Sharon's bold experiment. For all of his nastiness, including the murder of Palestinian refugees in southern Lebanon in the early 80s, forged with Lebanon's murderous Christian militia, his general ruthlessness towards Palestinians since (especially toward Yasser Arafat) and his general distrust of violent-prone Arab states, Sharon has been undoing his past.

Don't expect Netanyahu to continue the Sharon trend, though. Unlike Sharon, Netanyahu isn't given to making concessions with the Palestinians nor with any other Arab state that is bent on annihilating Israel. And the more Hamas and Hezbollah continue attacking Israel from the inside and outside of its borders, the stiffer Netanyahu's back will grow, who will marshal, for a tiny, disparate nation, one of most feared armed forces in the world.

And that means added problems for the broader Middle East. Netanyahu isn't a man even Washington has been able to calm down as easily as it could have Sharon. Arafat's death in 2004 was welcomed in Israel, and by Sharon, who saw in this an opportunity to work with the new Palestinian Authority in carving out a long-term peace process with his enemy and securing both the Israeli and Palestinian states. Sharon managed to bring in a degree of peace between the two, and a degree of certainty that flowed in world oil markets. Beyond this, spikes in oil prices can be blamed on the incompetence and folly of US and its allies' foreign policies and their ongoing war in Iraq, which they are yet to win despite Bush having proclaimed "mission accomplished" on a US battleship off the Californian coast in 2003. Iraq has become America's Vietnam.

And Islamic insurgents in Iraq and murderous terrorist groups in the broader region may feel they can now up the ante as Iran's political and military influence spreads, including lending political, religious-ideological, military and financial aid to these groups to attack Western interests in the region, including sending Israel to oblivion. But Sharon's exit leaves the US's Middle East policy in shambles.

Hate machinery

Oil price surges will hurt the recovering American economy and that in turn will hurt those economies that are export-dependent on the spending power of American consumers. And the more insurgents blow up Iraq's oil infrastructure, the worse for world oil supplies and prices, given Iraq is the second largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia. But the longer the US and its allies stay in Iraq, the worse for the world economy and the more Israel will stay on guard, especially as Iran will now direct its political ire at Tel Aviv and Washington.

This leaves the US with one option, beside the military one: if Netanyahu wins the next poll, and he looks mostly like to do so, Washington will have to start reigning in the man and pouring cold water over his head. And Washington will need to make him sit down with the Palestinian Authority's leader, Mahmoud Abbas, sooner rather than later, and secret meetings and emissaries on such missions are sure to happen. But these do require Netanyahu's consent.

Unlike Sharon, Netanyahu is still peeved when the US would not back him over Sharon when the latter was fighting for his political life. The reason's simple: Washington saw Netanyahu as a liability to Middle East peace, especially with the Palestinians. But the chief obstacle, the corrupt and inept Arafat, is dead, but the problem, as Netanyahu will see it, is whether Abbas will be able to demilitarise Hamas and Hezbollah, the latter, especially, since it owes it's allegiance to Iran more so than to the Palestinian people.

If Iran further cranks up its hate machinery for the West and Israel, as its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, seems hell-bent on doing, then the Sharon big leap forward for peace in the Middle East mission will come to naught. That will play to Netanyahu's advantage. Not a smart move on the part of Iran and its supporters. Still, work has been cut out for Washington, and it won't be easy. Not by a long shot.

It'll also bring the Palestine's Abbas into the thick of things, but such political intricacies are beyond him, as they were for Arafat. Which will leave Hamas and Hezbollah, with Syrian and Iranian backing, far too free to wreak murderous terror on Israel and spur other equally murderous Islamic terrorist groups to do likewise elsewhere in the Middle East, especially Iraq.

Hell hath no fury? An understatement.

MANJIT BHATIA, an academician and writer, is also research director of AsiaRisk, a political, economic and risk analysis consultancy in Australia. He specialises in international economics and politics, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific.