By Joe Macaron, KUNA,
Washington : US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice travels to the region this week to entice Arab countries to engage in Iraq, a diplomatic move to counter Iranian influence in this embattled country.
Kuwait hosts, next Tuesday, the third expanded neighbors’ international ministerial meeting on Iraq.
“It is a significant meeting in the present circumstances to attempt to involve all neighboring countries to move forward the situation in Iraq,” said the Director of the Middle East Program at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Marina Ottaway in an interview with KUNA.
Ottaway argued that the United States wants “a front of Arab states against Iran” to come out of this meeting, but, that would likely fail to happen since Arab countries “have been extremely careful in not being seen as siding with the United States.” “The best scenario out of the meeting is the United States and Iran can reach some kind of understanding about sharing influence in Iraq, but I do not think the Iranians right now are in the mood to compromise with the United States,” said the senior fellow in the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings Bruce Riedel in a separate interview.
“Many feel that time and geography are on their side; Americans are going to leave sooner or later and Iran will always be next door, and they do not see a reason why they should compromise for this administration which would not be in office in ten months,, he added.
A preliminary meeting of the Security Coordination and Cooperation Committee was held in Damascus last Monday, sending recommendations to the ministerial meeting on April 22 about ways to control Iraq’s many borders to stop the flow of weapons and terrorists.
Ottaway did not expect any “breakthrough” in the meeting and noted that neither, in Sharm El-Sheikh last May and Istanbul last November, made “a dramatic difference” on the trajectory of Iraq.
She argued that this meeting offers the host, Kuwait, “an opportunity to try to facilitate the dialogue between Iran and Iraq.” Both experts weighed the recent remarks of State Secretary Rice on the need to reinforce the Arab identity of Iraq, agreeing that the motive behind this statement was Iran, but it could not play well for the Kurdish groups in Iraq.
“Iraq is first and foremost an Arab State. It is a State in which Iraqi nationalism is very strong and the neighbors ought to be reinforcing that,” said Rice in a press briefing last Thursday.
State Department’s Director of Iraq Affairs Richard Schmierer explained to KUNA that this remark came in a “context of concern for the negative impact which Iran appears to be having in Iraq.” “She was simply making this point in a context of an environment in which there is this kind of malign influence coming from Iran into an Arab country,” he added.
Riedel, a former CIA officer and senior advisor to three US presidents, said that Arab countries now see Iranian behavior in Iraq as “a serious threat to their interests” but observed that Iraq “is increasingly oriented towards Iran.” US Commander of multinational forces in Iraq General David Petraeus and US Ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker traveled to Saudi Arabia this month to sway Riyadh to start diplomatic relations with Iraq.
“The US Administration would like to persuade both Arab states and the Arab majority in Iraq that they have a common interest,” said Riedel.
Arab countries already headed into this direction by inviting Iraq to the Gulf Cooperation Council meeting plus Egypt and Jordan, taking place in Bahrain tomorrow, where Rice will be attending as well to urge for establishing diplomatic relations with Baghdad.
Ottaway said “it is very difficult and dangerous to keep an embassy open in Iraq under the circumstances,” and added that “it is not even useful to some extent” to open one.
She asserted that there is no possibility to restore stability in Iraq unless the United States and Iran “enter into a dialogue.” The Iraqi government recently expressed frustration from the delays to hold a fourth round of talks between the United States and Iran at the ambassadorial level in Baghdad.
“To our knowledge, Iran has not yet indicated to the Iraqi government its willingness to set such a date,” said Schmierer.