He has fostered the greatest increase in tensions with Colombia in two decades, has reached out to Colombian rebels and has predicted that American military aid will lead to a regional conflagration.

Democracy may yet come to Iraq and the region, but so too may civil war or a regional conflagration, which in turn could lead to spiraling oil prices and a global economic shock.

In fact, a three-letter conjunction might spell the difference between a war in Iraq and a regional conflagration.

If Darfur's grim tally - several hundred thousand dead, two million driven from their homes - can't persuade the world to act, then perhaps the threat of a regional conflagration will.

IF Iraq should descend into full-blown civil war, its neighbors could be drawn into a "regional conflagration," as the new defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, put it to the Senate.

Averting a regional conflagration.

The resulting regional conflagration could remake the Middle East through mass bloodshed.

And we would finally see if the vague and unexplained possibility of a regional conflagration would occur.

He continued from there, explaining his concerns about a regional conflagration with less restraint and more dependent clauses than usual.

NATO has already asked for military options and accelerated planning for deployments around Kosovo to prevent a possible regional conflagration.