KurdistanObserver.com
A Bubbling Stew in Iraq
Why Nouri al-Maliki Is Blocking an International Conference
By Jim Hoagland
Sunday, April 1, 2007; Page B07
The Washington Post
U.S. efforts to bring the world's great powers
together with Iraq's quarrelsome neighbors to stabilize the government in
Baghdad have predictably run into strong opposition. Didn't President Bush warn
Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton that Syria and Iran were not interested in stopping
the turmoil in Iraq?
Well, yes, he did. But the source of crippling opposition to a high-profile
international conference in Turkey this month turns out not to have been
foreseen by the president or by his critics on the Iraq Study Group, chaired by
Baker and Hamilton. The gathering being pushed by Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice has been blocked for weeks by Nouri al-Maliki, the surprisingly
strong-willed prime minister of Iraq.
Maliki has his own reasons, which I'll explain
in a moment. But his initial sharp defiance of Washington's wishes -- and of the
conventional diplomatic wisdom that meeting is always better than not meeting --
carries larger meanings. It again shows that America's ability to produce
desired outcomes in the Middle East -- while not yet exhausted -- is waning
rapidly as the Democratic majority in Congress challenges Bush's authority and
the American occupation of Iraq enters its fifth draining year.
The policy disarray in Washington convinces
many Iraqis that the United States is on its way out sooner rather than later.
"The government must now prepare for the day after, rather than simply trying to
delay it," says one Iraqi politician.
Maliki and his foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari,
have insisted for months that Iraq's neighbors should send senior officials to
Baghdad if they want to hold a meeting that would help the government. The Iraqi
position was repeated, in diplomatic form, at a preparatory meeting of regional
ambassadors in Baghdad in early March.
But for political as well as security reasons,
Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and most other states in the region have stonewalled
Iraq's proposal. So have France, Germany, Russia and other members of the U.N.
Security Council or the Group of Eight industrial nations, which are also on
Rice's invitation list for Turkey.
Washington has focused intense pressure on
Maliki, who may yet agree to send Zebari to Istanbul rather than see the
conference aborted. The reasons for his resistance were explained in these terms
by an Iraqi official who requested anonymity in order to speak frankly:
"Why should we go to a meeting to be ganged up
on by European and Arab countries that were against the liberation of Iraq to
begin with? Why should it be held on the soil of a country that threatens and
slights Iraqis instead of helping them?"
Turkey's military stands prepared to invade
northern Iraq to destroy Kurdish guerrilla camps or to take control of the
disputed city of Kirkuk, if circumstances warrant. Ankara has also pointedly
refused to deal with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, an ethnic Kurd who asserts
that his home town of Kirkuk is Kurdish, or with the regional Kurdish government
of Massoud Barzani. Ankara's non-dialogue policy has led to interruptions of the
movement of petroleum supplies across the Turkish border in recent weeks.
Only Iran has unequivocally said it would
attend a ministerial meeting in Baghdad. Iranian officials suggest that Sunni
Arab regimes fear that sending their high-level politicians to Baghdad would
undercut the support they provide for the Sunni insurgents fighting U.S. troops
and trying to destabilize Maliki's unsteady coalition government of Kurdish and
sectarian Shiite parties.
Such is the stew of local tensions, grievances
and countervailing forces that outsiders frequently overlook in drawing up grand
military or diplomatic designs -- or even "benchmarks" and "deadlines" -- for
Iraqis to carry out. Baker, Hamilton & Co. seem to have understood such regional
tensions and barriers to meaningful dialogue no better than Bush and Rice.
Most Iraqis are still deeply suspicious of the
Sunni-ruled countries, international organizations and, for that matter, U.S.
administrations that sold them out to placate or neglect Saddam Hussein over
three decades. Nor can they or the Arab regimes trust Iran's intentions. Iraqis
have earned the right to look skeptically at foreign governments that have
suddenly come to "help" them.
For the ironic of mind, Maliki's stubborn
stance recalls the dangers of answered prayers. Fed up with his vaporous
indecisiveness, U.S. diplomats helped dump Ibrahim al-Jafari, Maliki's
predecessor (and ideological ally), and bring the more forceful Maliki to office
last year.
Bush praised Maliki as a "strong leader" when
the two met in November. Now he deals with the consequences of conjuring up a
decision maker who decides in ways that the president may well not like, much
less be able to control.
jimhoagland@washpost.com
