Thirty-one years after the start of the Yom Kippur, or the October 1973 War, the Middle East remains a zone of turmoil.

Wednesday, Oct. 6, will mark 31 years since the Yom Kippur War started, or as it was known in the Arab world, the October War. The effects of the war, which ended in neither a clear victory nor a deciding defeat for either side, continue to be felt to this day. And while much has changed in the Middle East in 31 years, in reality, it is more of the same.

A quick look at the area three decades after then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger negotiated a disengagement agreement on the Golan Heights between Syria and Israel reveals that the region continues to stagnate.

Despite its new, young president, Syria under the leadership of Bashar Assad, continues to follow much the same policy set by his father Hafez, according to high-level U.S. government officials who asked not to be named. The Baath Party remains the predominant force, and 31 years after the guns first went into action on the Golan Heights, the presence of United Nation troops is still required to maintain a buffer zone between Syria and Israel, who technically, remain at war.

While Syrian officials say they are warming up to Washington and want to see a thaw in relations, U.S. officials say that Damascus still needs to demonstrate it is sincere.

Israel, for its part, faces the longest-running spate of violence since it fought its war of independence in 1947. The Jewish state went to war in 1982 in Lebanon to distance the threat of the Palestine Liberation Organization, but today the enemy it once fought to dispel from its borders is now within those very borders.

And although the Palestinians managed to get a small piece of turf they can finally call their own -- even if it's not a state quite yet -- the Palestinian Authority under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, thanks to corruption and poor leadership, has managed to mismanage the territories practically to the ground.

The infrastructure of the Palestinian territories is in far worse shape today that it ever was under direct Israeli occupation, say U.S. and some Palestinian officials. That is not to say that life under the occupation was ever pleasant.

Lebanon, while not directly involved in the October War, finds itself under Syrian tutelage as a result of its civil war. If the guns on the Golan have been silent for 31 years, occasional fighting continues on Lebanese soil as other Middle East forces continue to fight their war by Lebanese proxy.

Egypt, the other main actor in the 1973 war, overall came out of the conflict in fairly good shape. It managed through negotiations what it failed to accomplish through conflict -- to regain all its territory from Israel. The Sinai that was lost to Israel in previous wars was negotiated back through the 1978 Camp David Peace talks and the accords that ensued. Initiated by President Jimmy Carter and signed by President Anwar Sadat and Prime Minister Menachem Begin, the accords took Egypt out of the conflict.

Although initially shunned by the rest of the Arab world for negotiating with Israel, Egypt was gradually accepted back into the fold, but not before Sadat paid with his life.

Since then, not much has changed in Egypt. Hosni Mubarak replaced Sadat, but again, 31 years later the status quo continues, and when elections are held, Mubarak wins them with overwhelming odds.

If Egypt took itself out of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Syria and Israel remain in a state of war, as do the Palestinians and Israel with the intifada now in its fourth year. Palestinian-Israeli talks periodically resume, stop and stumble. Lately they have mostly stumbled. And this week fighting in the Gaza Strip has reached new heights.

President Bush has chosen not to engage Yasser Arafat in negotiations, whom he accuses of being tainted by terrorism. This makes the situation all the more difficult, seeing that Arafat keeps all his cards -- including those relating to security in the territories -- close to his chest.

While there is little danger that Syria and Israel could resume hostilities, the Middle East, nevertheless, remains a hair trigger away from open hostilities.

This time the danger comes from the unsettlement of Iraq and the threat of Iran pursuing its nuclear desires.

While the Middle East's hot zones may have shifted in 31 years, we now face the new menace of weapons of mass destruction being introduced to the theater and of being exported to the West.

Thirty-one years ago, the biggest annoyance to the West was not having enough oil to drive their cars and heat their homes. Today that worry seems marginalized, with the real peril being a nuclear device or a dirty bomb being planted in an American or European city by Islamist fundamentalists.

During last Thursday's first presidential debate, which focused on foreign policy, Sen. John Kerry touched on a very important point when he said he would work to marginalize radical Islam and not allow radical Islam to marginalize the United States.

A marginalized United States will fail to have the needed clout to mediate peace in the Middle East. And until a just and stable peace is reached, the region will continue to spiral down into greater chaos.

With the luxury of time on our side, if we were to step back and examine the Middle East and compare it to what it was 31 years ago, we will see that the region is far more volatile. Few countries have really made progress. Yes Egypt and Jordan are no longer about to wage war against Israel, and Libya reneged on its WMDs.

However, the danger posed by Islamist terrorism, which is expanding, the Taliban still active in Afghanistan, the chaotic situation in Iraq and the real threat of nuclear proliferation in the region, leaves plenty of room to believe we are hardly better off than we were in 1973.

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