WASHINGTON, March 1: A period of extreme turbulence will follow if the Iraq war ends in an ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ that can claim to have ejected Russia from Afghanistan and the United States from Iraq, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger warned in comments published on Thursday.

Mr Kissinger said the unrest would not be confined to the Middle East but could also extend to nations outside the region with large Muslim populations such as Pakistan, Indonesia, India, Turkey and Malaysia.

Writing in The Washington Post, Mr Kissinger said the two international conferences dealing with Iraq's future and involving all of Iraq's neighbours including Iran and Syria, which were announced by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, mark an important step in dealing with an incongruity of international politics.

He said the United States had been widely condemned for its handling of the Iraq war while no country has been prepared to seriously explore the political implications of what happens next.

“If America fails to achieve its immediate objectives — if terrorist camps or terrorist regimes emerge on Iraqi soil, backed by its huge oil resources -- no country with a significant Muslim population will be able to escape the consequences,'' Henry Kissinger said.

In addition to countries with large or majority Muslim populations, he said, the threat would extend to western European nations, Russia with a Muslim south and even to China.

''If the Iraq war culminates in a nuclear Iran (as an indirect consequence) and an Islamic fundamentalism that can claim to have ejected Russia from

Afghanistan and the United States from Iraq, a period of extreme turbulence verging on chaos is unavoidable and will not be confined to the Middle East,'' Mr Kissinger said.

He said a threat to the global oil supplies would have a shattering impact on the world economy, especially the economies of industrial countries.

“Peace, stability, and democracy in Iraq are global challenges even though none of the potential victims has been required to contribute ideas, much less enlisted in the quest for a political solution,'' Mr Kissinger said.

He also wrote that the two conferences proposed by Mr Maliki, and that would include Iraq's neighbours and the five permanent members of the UN Security council, be expanded to include nations with Muslim populations such as Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia and countries that are large oil importers such as Germany and Japan.—AP