U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney held talks with King Abdullah on Saturday seeking Saudi Arabia's help on dealing with the spiraling violence in Iraq and a string of crises in the Mideast where American policy is on the line: Iran, Lebanon and the Palestinians.

Cheney's brief trip to the kingdom, which lasted less than a day, underlined the two allies' concerns over the upheavals across the region that many Arabs blame on U.S. policies and Washington and Riyadh's determination to explore ways to break the deadlock - if only partially.

In a sign of the urgency of the U.S. concern in the Middle East, President George W. Bush is scheduled to meet with Iraq's prime minister in the Jordanian capital Wednesday and Thursday - an unusual sucession of visits by the president and vice president to the region.

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Both trips were planned before outbursts of violence this weeks dramatically worsened the situation in two countries of key U.S. interest, Iraq and Lebanon.

On the Palestinian front, the official said Saudi Arabia hopes that Washington would not snub any Palestinian government that emerges from talks between Hamas and the moderate Fatah faction.

Washington has shunned the government led by the militant Palestinian group, which has refused to recognize Israel and renounce violence. Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah, is trying to work out a new national unity government with Hamas, but Arabs are hoping the U.S. will be flexible with how much Hamas must moderate or be sidelined in a new government to allow a resumption of the peace process with U.S. ally Israel.

On Lebanon, Saudi Arabia wants to ensure there are no cracks in the support for the U.S.-backed government, which groups allied with Syria and Iran want to overthrow, the official said. Saudi Arabia has strong links to the anti-Syrian bloc that dominates Lebanon's Cabinet.

On Tuesday, an anti-Syrian Lebanese politician was gunned down in Beirut, highlighting the fragility of the U.S.-backed government and threatening to push Lebanon's political crisis into turmoil. Then in Iraq, Sunni insurgents unleashed a string of car bombs that killed more than 200 people Thursday in a Shiite district of Baghdad, giving a new push to Iraq's descent into chaos.

The worsening situation underlined the U.S. need for backing from oil-rich Saudi Arabia as well as the need to reassure a top ally in the Middle East about American plans.

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries are also deeply concerned over the West's confrontation with Iran over that nation's nuclear facilities. Gulf countries worry about the possibility of Iran developing nuclear weapons and its attempts to expand its influence in the Middle East. But at the same time, they fear the fallout will hit them if the West's attempts to force Iran to back down in its program bring Iranian reprisals.

Iran, the United States' top rival in the Middle East, had planned its own summit Saturday, inviting the presidents of Iraq and Syria in what was seen as a bid to assert its role as a powerbroker in the Iraqi conflict.

But Syria never responded to the invitation, in what may be an effort to avoid antagonizing the United States. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was unable to go to Iran on Saturday because Baghdad's airport was ordered closed after the burst of violence and he said he would be unable to visit Iran before Sunday at the earliest.

Cheney was expected to ask Saudi Arabia to use its considerable influence with Iraq's Sunni minority, whose insurgents have carried out some of the bloodiest attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi Shiites, to promote reconciliation with the country's Shiites and Kurds, a Saudi official said.

In return, Saudi Arabia will ask the U.S. to help rein in Iraq's Shiite militias, blamed in sectarian attacks that have killed thousands, the official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.

That demand could be hard for Washington to achieve. The United States has already been pressing Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to crack down on Shiite militias, but he has balked since the militias are linked to Shiite political parties he relies on in his government.

After Thursday's slaughter of Shiites, it will be even harder to take action against militias. In the wake of the bombings, one of the Shiite parties threatened to withdraw from al-Maliki's government if he went ahead with the summit with Bush. The White House said the meeting was still on.

The kingdom, which shares a 900-kilometer border with Iraq, has repeatedly voiced concern over the violence there, urging the United States to do something to bring calm. On Monday, the Saudi Cabinet urged U.S.-led troops to protect Iraq's borders and prevent external political, intelligence or security hegemony over parts of the country.