Smash hit

As well as his intransigence over enriching uranium, Mr Ahmadinejad has also enraged Western leaders by appearing to threaten to attack Israel when he pledged in a high-profile 2005 speech to "eliminate this disgraceful stain" from the world.

He has publicly praised Hezbollah Islamists who provoked war in southern Lebanon last year by firing rockets at Israel, and Hamas in the Palestinian territories - both of which the Iranian regime is accused of funding. The US also accuses Iran of helping to fund Shia terror attacks against coalition troops in Iraq.

Iran and Syria this afternoon strongly criticised the US's military deals. The Islamic Republic’s Defence Minister, Brigadier General Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, accused the US of "trying to create a false arms race, in order to keep their weapon factories up and running."

Walid Muallem, the Syrian Foreign Minister, meanwhile, condemned the deals as "dangerous," adding: "He who wants to make peace does not start out with an arms initiative which is dangerous for the region."

Mr Gates earlier said that an essential goal for their trip was to reassure moderate Arab leaders that the US's intervention in Iraq was designed to bring peace to the region.

A build-up of US forces in Iraq has raised the number of troops there to nearly 160,000, as part of President Bush's much-heralded "surge," but pressure has been mounting on the US Government as violence fails to ease.

Mr Gates said that US officials want "to reassure all of the countries that the policies that the President pursues in Iraq have had and will continue to have regional stability and security as a very high priority".

At the start of their trip, Ms Rice and Mr Gates also met Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian President, Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi Arabian foreign minister, and other leading diplomats from Gulf states in the Red Sea resort.

They then travelled to Saudi Arabia, the oil-rich country with which the US has a strategic relationship, to meet King Abdullah to discuss Iraq.

Tomorrow, they will head for Israel, where they will meet Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister, and Shimon Peres, the President.

Later that day and on Thursday morning, the pair will be in the West Bank to meet Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President and moderate Fatah leader whose party was recently driven out of Gaza by Hamas, and his Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad.

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