A vision of a new Middle East emerging from the conflict in Lebanon as outlined by US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice drew ridicule on Monday from mainstream Arab analysts and former Arab diplomats. Several of them said the United States and Israel had little if any chance of achieving their stated goals of disarming Hezbollah and deploying the Lebanese army or an international buffer force along the Israeli-Lebanese frontier. "I think it's preposterous. From the beginning this is a plan that cannot be achieved," former Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Maher told Reuters. In the meantime, by giving the green light to an Israeli offensive which has killed more than 300 civilians and done damage worth billions of dollars, the United States has helped stir up hatred and extremism in a troubled region, they say. Rice said that on her trip to the Middle East, which began on Monday, she would not try to restore the status quo which existed before a Hezbollah raid into Israel this month. "What we're seeing here, in a sense, is ... the birth pangs of a new Middle East and, whatever we do, we have to be certain that we're pushing forward to the new Middle East, not going back to the old one," she added.