WASHINGTON, March 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies ) - Washington's apparent isolation during Vice President Dick Cheney's Middle East tour will not, despite the region's patent lack of enthusiasm for armed intervention, lead to a softening of the U.S. position on Iraq.

Cheney is the highest U.S. official to visit the Middle East since U.S. President George W. Bush took power. His task, said the administration, is to sound out Arab leadership about possible military action against Iraq in the U.S.-led anti-terror drive, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Despite his previous Middle East experience and contacts, gleaned from years as an oil executive, Cheney has met so far in his 12-nation tour with strong resistance to a strike against 11-year-sanctions-hit Iraq.

Reservations expressed in Egypt and Jordan to any such strike were confirmed in Saudi Arabia, the principal U.S. ally in the Gulf region, AFP said.

And European nations meeting in Barcelona, Spain, even failed to bring the matter up for official discussion, although words of support were issued by Britain.

Experts say that although the United States may have been looking for fewer public rebuffs, it is too soon to judge whether Cheney's mission has been a success.

"The real measure of success is what was said in private, the commitments made," said Michele Flournoy, senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think tank. "I don't think we should mistake the spin that these countries take for their own domestic political purposes as the primary measure of success.

"I don't think that message deters this administration at all from continuing to make a case against Iraq and to gradually move towards a situation where they will launch military action," she said.

"History demands that this nation [U.S.] honors our commitment to freedom and our love of freedom,” said the U.S. president. “The world is looking at the United States of America to whether or not we will blink, and I assure you we won't blink."

Scott Lasensky, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, gives a similar reading to Arab leaders' reactions: "How much of that is rhetorical and for public consumption and how much of that is real remains to be seen."

Lately, the United States has multiplied accusations that Iraq builds and stores arms of mass destruction -- which could make it the next battlefield in the “war on terrorism”.

CNN and The Time paper poll said 70 percent of those in the United States would support their government's military in toppling Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

For some experts, the real lesson from Cheney's 10-day tour of nine Arab states, Israel and Turkey, as well as Britain, will be that the United States must first tackle the Israeli-Palestinian question.

"I think what the message that came back loud and clear to the Bush administration is that most of the Arab states feel very strongly that the U.S. needs to take more of a leadership role in trying to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian situation and that that is more important to them at this point then discussing next steps on Iraq," Flournoy said.

"The administration learned a lesson that they can't stay away from the Israeli-Palestinian issue," said Lasensky. "Cheney's visit is the final nail in the coffin."

Cheney's tour, which took him to Israel Monday, March 18, will conclude with a visit to Turkey.

NATO's only Muslim member, Turkey, gave full support to the 1991 Gulf War with U.S. jets using bases in southern Turkey to launch bombing raids on Baghdad.

However, Turkey is expected to convey to Cheney, who arrives there Tuesday, March 19, its unease over any new military strikes on its southern neighbor.

Turkey, the key Muslim ally of Washington in the war against terrorism, has spoken out against extending the anti-terror drive to its southern neighbor, arguing that Baghdad's refusal to allow the resumption of U.N. weapons inspections did not necessarily require punitive strikes.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday, March 15, during a European Union summit in Barcelona, Ecevit said: "Iraq has been under strict control and is not in a position to inflict any harm on its neighbors ... It's not a necessity to undertake a military operation."

Turkey fears turmoil in Iraq would set back its efforts to revive the crisis-hit Turkish economy and lead to the emergence of an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq, which has been outside Baghdad's control since the 1991 Gulf War, AFP said.

Such a state might fan separatist sentiment among Turkey's own Kurds and rekindle a 15-year Kurdish rebellion for self-rule in the country's southeastern corner, which has notably faded since 1999.

That was confirmed earlier by the Egyptian military analyst Mohammed Abdel-Salam, who said in an exclusive interview with IslamOnline that Turkey, one of Iraq’s many neighboring countries that would not support the Kurds with military aid, fears the Kurds would fight for separate state.

In a bid to avert an operation on Iraq, Turkey has made several unsuccessful attempts to persuade Saddam Hussein to abide by U.N. resolutions and has called on Washington to focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict instead of pondering military moves against Baghdad.

Ankara gave full support to the 1991 Gulf War with U.S. jets using bases in southern Turkey to launch bombing raids on Baghdad, and maintains it lost 40 billion dollars as a result of the sanctions imposed on Iraq for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

In another development and ahead of Cheney’s visit to Turkey, a prominent leader of the Iraqi Kurds, who have been in control of northern Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War, arrived in Turkey Tuesday for talks with Turkish officials.

Jalal Talabani, who heads the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), flew into Istanbul from Damascus and is expected to travel on to Ankara later in the day, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Talabani is expected to meet the undersecretary of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, Ugur Ziyal, on Wednesday, March 20.

Talabani's visit, the second in less than two weeks, coincides with Cheney’s visit.

Washington wants to get rid of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and has threatened military action if Baghdad refuses to allow the resumption of U.N. weapons inspections.

Talabani said during his previous visit to Ankara in early March that he preferred a democratic change of regime in Iraq involving forces within the country instead of a military intervention from outside.

"We are for fundamental democratic change in Iraq with Iraqi democratic and progressive forces," he said.

The PUK leader also stressed that his faction would not support any plan to overthrow Saddam without a sound alternative to replace him.

However, Abdel-Salam, the Egyptian military analyst said that one of the reasons that the U.S. would not topple the Iraqi regime with the support of the Kurds is because the Kurds are wary of cooperating with the U.S. fearing that the Iraqi regime will not be toppled

Meanwhile, more than half of British voters now disapprove of the government backing U.S. military action against Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime, a poll said Tuesday.

The Guardian poll, showing 51 percent of the electorate against British backing for a U.S.-led military strike, suggested a marked hardening of opposition.

Similar polls last year and three years ago showed majorities approving action.