The indispensable man?

The truth of the adage that no man is indispensable is being severely tested by Ariel Sharon, gravely ill as a result of a stroke that has left him virtually brain dead. The larger-than-life Israeli prime minister and former Army general couldn't have been stricken at a worse time.

His bold leadership embodied his nation. As a 1967 war hero and hardliner, who several decades ago founded and helped bring to national power the Likud Party, he was trusted by his people to make peace concessions that possibly no other Israeli leader could get away with.

Sharon broke with his hawkish past last summer when he removed Israeli settlements in Gaza and parts of the West Bank - settlements he helped create in an earlier era.

His plan was to wall off Israel from the Palestinians, thereby reducing warfare between them, and compelling the Palestinians to govern themselves in their own state. It seemed to be working, as violence between Israelis and Palestinians declined by nearly 90 percent.

When Likud threatened to dump him as their leader, Sharon formed a new centrist party, Kadima, to which he attracted a number of key leaders from the two established parties. Polls showed Sharon and his new party poised to post a huge victory in the March elections.

Now, with the 77-year-old old general removed from the political scene, Israeli politics and the Mideast process are in chaos. No one knows what to expect. Even the Palestinians, who claim they hate Sharon from his warrior days, are concerned about his absence.

The hand of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a Likud hard-liner opposed to Sharon's vision of peace, could be strengthened. "Many Israelis followed Sharon ... into Kadima because they believe he represented the best guarantee for Israel's security in the near future," says Israeli historian Michael Oren. "In his absence they are likely to fall back on the next likeliest guarantee, Bibi Netanyahu."

For now, though, the reins of government are in the hands of Kadima's No. 2 man, Vice Premier Ehud Olmert. Olmert is fully in sync with Sharon's policies - in fact, he is given credit for shaping many of them - but the charisma and gravitas gap between him and Sharon may be too large to bridge before the March elections.

The only thing that's certain is that Israeli politics - and the Mideast process - will be in turmoil for the next several months, at least. If Sharon wasn't the indispensable man, he came awfully close.