During Russian President Vladimir Putin’s historic visit to Israel, Putin and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak argued for two key things that would help further peace in the Middle East; more UN involvment in Iraq and peace talks to be held in Moscow.

“The United Nations should play a role in helping Iraq and in particular in rebuilding its constitutional and legislative institutions,” Mubarak told reporters at the news conference.

“It should also play a role in the reconstruction of Iraq,” Mubarak was quoted by AP as saying.

Well, it’s about damn time someone other than the United States and England are asking the United Nations to step up to their earlier pledge to help reconstruction and the political scene in Iraq. This is yet one more failure of the United Nations under Kofi Annan.

Mubarak will not be able to send any soldiers to Iraq to help safeguard the country as it would create huge turmoil in his own country, a country that will have an election for President thanks in large part to the new-found Democratic movement in the Middle East. Putin, well, I’m not sure what keeps Russia from helping out in Iraq other than it might be a conflict of interest to their arms sales in the Saddam Hussein era while Iraq was under UN sanctions or a conflict of interest in their new nuclear trading partner Iran. I take what Mubarak says at face value however I doubt Putin was the one of the two advocating such a statement.

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has called for a Mideast peace conference in Moscow in the autumn, and he and his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak also ended their landmark meeting by urging the United Nations to play a larger role in Iraq.

The Russian president, leader of one of the four powers backing the “road map” plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, said Wednesday he would discuss the peace conference proposal with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon during his visit to Israel, which was to begin late Wednesday.

“I am suggesting that we should convene a conference for all these countries concerned (with the Mideast peace process) and the Quartet, next autumn,” Putin said in Russian during a joint press conference with Mubarak. The so-called Quartet includes Russia, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations.

Right now we’ve got a Roadmap to Peace that has been layed out for years and only a few steps have been followed, though none of them to the full extent of the accord. Why not invite Russia into the mix as well as the United Nations? Russia, historically speaking, has sided more against Israel than for Israel, however if Russia has a good idea to get the peace process rejuvenated then why not let them go for it.

The election of Abbas in Palestine should help pave the way towards peace as it already has, however if Israel continues to side-step the Roadmap to Peace then another measure must be put in place to give the Roadmap a chance to succeed. No, I’m not putting all the blame at the hands of Israel as I’ve argued many times on this site a perhaps bigger obstacle is Palestinian terrorists.