Arabs' rocky road to Iraq

Thursday, Aug 21, 2008

Dubai: Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora visited Baghdad on Wednesday for political and economic talks, in the latest high-profile visit by an Arab official to the strife-ridden country.

Iraqi officials described his visit as further indication of Iraq's improved security.

However, experts believe the visit comes as a result of combination of other factors. They include US encouragement to its regional allies to open their doors to Iraq as a way to counter growing Iranian influence, and individual states' major incentive to better relations with Iraq because it is a major oil producer.

"Arabs are feeling they left Iraq for the sake of someone else," Faris Breizat, deputy Director of Strategic Studies Center at Jordan University said.

"Re-engagement with Iraq means Arabs have to settle their differences with Iraq solving problems which threaten their existence and stability," Breizat told Gulf News.

Facing Iranian influence

"What happens in Iraq doesn't stay in Iraq," he added. Terrorism, sectarianism, arms smuggling, and the influx of refugees from Iraq have had a negative affect on its neighbouring countries.

"The US has urged its allies to much more involved in Iraq to counter the Iranian influence [there]," said Josst Hintermann, Deputy Program Director, Middle East and North Africa.

"Americans will not leave Iraq with a vacuum to be filled by people the US doesn't like," said Breizat, referring to the Iran. "They [Americans] will leave Iraq at a certain time - when Iraq is in the Arab circles," he added. But Iraq's Arab neighbours are still balancing ways to counter Iran's involvement in Iraq.

"Is it by isolating the governments supported by Tehran or trying to get into it?" Hintermann said. He explained that many Arabs don't fully trust the Iraqi government headed by Nouri Al Maliki and question its seriousness in keeping its promises of national reconciliation and Sunni integration in the decision making and state building measures.

"These are legitimate concerns," said Ali Dabbagh, Iraqi government spokes-person. "These concerns, however, should not be ostracised but reconciled."

"Iran's increasing role is growing in the absence of an Iraqi one," Dabbagh said. However, he added at the same time "no country has a custody over Iraq. We want to have the best relations with Iran, the best relations with Saudi Arabia and the best relations with the US."

Some experts, including Breizat who joined the US House of Representatives committee on Foreign Affairs in 2007, believe the differences between Arabs and Iran over Iraq is much deeper than the Sunni-Shiite issue.

"It is who would call the shots in the region's security," Breizat said.

New order in the region

A new order in the region has emerged, Breizat explained. In the post cold war era, the Gulf region has been through three wars.

"The US has a border with almost every country in the region, their troops are all over the place," Breizat said.

"The US can't afford to stay in the region forever, it would have to delegate," Breizat said, adding that both the Israelis and the Iranians are trying to get a credible role.

Dabbagh, speaking to Gulf News from Baghdad, described Siniora's visit as a message that the situation in Iraq has improved. Visits like Siniora's, "pave the way for the resumption of Iraq's correct role in the region."

Siniora's trip came only nine days after the visit of Jordan's Monarch King Abdullah II, which was the first visit by an Arab head of state since the US-led invasion of 2003. Last month, Sa'ad Hariri, the leader of the parliamentary majority in Lebanon, also visited Iraq.

Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE's Foreign Minister, was the first top official in the Gulf region to visit Iraq this summer. UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, Lebanon and Jordan have announced the reopening of their embassies in Baghdad and named ambassadors since Egypt's Ambassador was assassinated in 2005.

Dabbagh emphasised that there was no specific agreement related to Iraqi oil exports to Lebanon during yesterday's visit.

The two countries, he said, agreed on forming a higher committee to follow-up cooperation between Iraq and Lebanon.