"There is no guarantee that they would in turn not opt for a form of government that would be inimical to US, either desires or interests," Cohen said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think-tank.

Former president Bill Clinton's Pentagon chief was the most notable among 19 authors of a report on US Middle East policy, which, the group concluded in part, the United States was fumbling.

The report was released as Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates took unprecedented steps toward democratization in the wake of the US-led invasion of Iraq to topple dictator Saddam Hussein.

US President George W. Bush says Iraq's historic elections on January 30 should set an example for the region.

"The administration should be given credit," Cohen said, while he said there was not a clear connection between the Iraq vote and events in the rest of the Arab world.

"But if democracy occurred immediately in every country in the region that we're talking about, are we going to say this will lead to stability?" Cohen said.

"We don't know."

CSIS, an independent, non-partisan think-tank, sponsored the year-long study, "From Conflict to Cooperation," which included polls by Zogby International.

James Zogby, an analyst at Zogby International, said his polls showed that Arab leaders, in and out of government, were more interested in US help with health care, employment, education and solving the Arab-Israeli conflict than they were with regime change.

"They want help from the US, but not the kind of help we seem to be offering," Zogby said.

Bush said in his State of the Union address in January that he intended "to promote peace and stability in the broader Middle East," and called specifically on Saudi Arabia and Egypt for reforms.

Since then, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has called for the first multi-party elections in 50 years and Saudia Arabia has held long-promised local elections.

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