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The Iraq Security Conference: Hanging a Deal on Faulty Assumptions
Kamran Bokhari , Stratfor: Geopolitical Intelligence Report, 1 May 07
After weeks of playing hard to get, Iran announced April 29 that
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki will attend the May 3-4
conference in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, where
Iraq's neighboring states and major world powers will explore ways
to stabilize Iraq. The same day, Iranian national security chief
Ali Larijani traveled to Baghdad on a surprise three-day visit
apparently aimed at discussing security and the upcoming conference
with Iraqi officials.
The United States welcomed Iran's decision to attend the
conference, calling it a "positive" development. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice hinted before Iran's announcement at the
possibility of meeting directly with Mottaki on the sidelines of
the conference. President George W. Bush later explained that Rice
and Mottaki could engage in bilateral talks within the context of
the multilateral event, though he ruled out separate public-level
talks between Tehran and Washington. Things still could go wrong
before May 3, and Mottaki could decide against attending the
conference, but for now it looks like he will show up. Deputy
Foreign Minister Mehdi Mostafavi said May 1 that, while Iran is
ready to hold "discussions" with the United States, the conditions
are not appropriate for negotiations.
The potential open engagement between the United States and Iran at
the foreign ministry level would be the culmination of back-channel
negotiations that started even before the United States led the
invasion of Iraq. In other words, the Bush administration -- long
after having scrapped its original deal with Tehran on the makeup
of a post-war Iraqi government -- has reached a preliminary
understanding with Iran's clerical regime on how the two sides will
proceed with regard to stabilizing Iraq in the wake of the
unexpected Sunni insurgency, the subsequent sectarian war and the
involvement of Arab Sunni states in the fray.
The Sharm el-Sheikh conference, then, represents the launch of the
formal process of hammering out a complex, multi-party deal to
piece together the Humpty Dumpty that is Iraq.
The U.S.-Iranian back-channel talks were never going to result in a
deal on how to divide Iraq; rather, they were a way for Washington
and Tehran to work out their respective concerns about a future
post-Baathist Iraq before taking the problem to the wider forum.
The back-channel talks, which provide the context for the
multilateral conference, will continue -- though the real deal will
likely emerge from this wider forum.
Throughout the years of behind-the-scenes talks, the two sides have
been unable to reach an understanding that balances the concerns of
both with regard to Iraq's future. Iran does not want an Iraq with
close ties to the United States -- one that threatens Iranian
national security and Tehran's regional aspirations. Conversely,
the United States does not want to see an Iraq dominated by Iran --
a situation that would allow Tehran to threaten the Arab states in
the Persian Gulf/Arabian Peninsula, and thus U.S. regional
interests. Moreover, the involvement of Sunni Arab states that feel
threatened by the rise of Iran and its Shiite Arab allies has
further complicated U.S.-Iranian dealings. Saudi Arabia, which has
emerged as the leader of the Arab world, has been spearheading the
move to counter Iran.
Complications aside, the Saudi efforts to insert themselves into
the equation have given Washington a tool with which to counter
Iranian moves. In fact, just as the Bush administration has used
the Iraqi Sunni card to rein in the country's Shia (Washington has
signaled to the Shia that it is willing to cut deals with the
Sunnis, especially the Baathists), it has leveraged its alignment
with the Arab states to contain the Iranians. While the United
States needs Iranian cooperation to stabilize Iraq, the Iranians
also need the United States to ensure that the Arab states and
their Iraqi Sunni allies will not threaten Iranian interests.
The upcoming conference, therefore, is immensely important to all
sides. The meeting represents a formal acknowledgement by all
parties of the sphere of influence the Iranians and the Saudis will
have in Iraq. Both Riyadh and Tehran want assurances that each
other's respective proxies -- the Shiite militias and the Sunni
insurgents -- will be restrained from creating security issues for
them. In recent weeks, the Iranians have demonstrated they can get
Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr's militia, the Mehdi Army, to more or
less go along with the security plan. On the other hand, the Saudi
announcement of the arrests of jihadist militants and the seizure
of large sums of cash and weapons was meant as a reciprocating
message that Riyadh, too, can rein in the jihadists who threaten
the Shia -- and, by extension, the Iranian position in Iraq.
The general understanding has been that a U.S.-Saudi-Iranian deal
could help stabilize Iraq -- the assumption being that Riyadh and
Tehran have the ability to rein in their respective militias and
insurgents in Iraq. Although ending the violence is beyond either
country's ability, the Saudis and the Iranians are letting on that
they can contain their fighters -- for a price. The Saudis want to
ensure that Iraq's Sunni community has a sufficient share of the
political pie in Baghdad so that, even with Shiite domination of
the Iraqi state, the Iranians could not use Iraq as a military
springboard into the Arabian Peninsula. For their part, the
Iranians want assurances that the Sunni minority in Iraq never
again will be in a position to threaten Iran's national security.
More than that, however, the Islamic republic would like to be able
to use its influence to pull strings within the Iraqi
Shiite-dominated government.
This is the dilemma that faces the United States and the Sunni Arab
states. They want to figure out how to acknowledge Iranian
influence in Iraq's affairs, but still prevent Tehran from using
such influence to enhance its power. Iraq's ethno-sectarian
demography -- it is only approximately 20 percent Sunni -- is what
scares Washington and its Arab allies. They are hoping, then, that
ensuring the Sunnis a sufficient share of the Iraqi government will
serve to check the Iranian/Shiite rise. To achieve that goal,
however, the United States and Saudi Arabia would have to make a
major reciprocal concession: acknowledging that a larger share of
the pie will be in the hands of the Shia. This is one of the key
reasons why reining in the Shiite militias has become a
prerequisite for containing the Sunni insurgency.
This brings us back to the Sharm el-Sheikh conference, where Tehran
is hoping the United States and its Arab allies acknowledge Iranian
interests in Iraq in exchange for Iran's willingness to restrain
the Shiite militias. The Arabs are willing to give Tehran the
recognition it wants, though they are operating from a position of
relative weakness and cannot trust that Iran would not use a
relatively stable Iraq to extend its influence across the Persian
Gulf.
Furthermore, although the Bush administration is downplaying the
possibility, the Arabs are concerned that the political pendulum in
the United States is swinging heavily in favor of an early pullout
-- or major drawdown -- of coalition forces from Iraq. Since, in
the long run, they cannot trust Washington to underwrite a deal
with the Iranians, the Arabs are hesitant to sign a document that
would effectively give Iran the room to maneuver as it pleases.
This is the root of the Saudi reluctance to use its influence among
the Iraqi Sunnis to help contain sectarian violence.
More important, however, Iraq's Sunni and Shiite communities are so
internally factionalized (the Shia to a greater extent) that
neither Tehran nor Riyadh is likely to succeed in shutting down the
militancy. Moreover, the multiplicity of Shiite political and
militant factions makes it difficult for Iran to keep all of them
happy -- and thus on board with any deal it might be willing to
cut. The continuing strife in the Shiite south, especially in the
oil-rich city of Basra, is but one example of the problems the
Iranians face in this regard.
Similarly, the Saudis cannot claim to speak for all the Sunnis. But
even more problematic for Riyadh is that its best weapon against
the Iranians is the jihadists, especially those affiliated with al
Qaeda -- precisely those who pose a major national security threat
to the Saudi kingdom.
The question, then, is whether the Saudis and the Iranians can
actually deliver on a triangular deal involving each of them and
the third main state actor in Iraq -- the United States. It would
appear that their fears over their respective interests have forced
them to deal with one another despite their apprehensions.
Ultimately, however, the three big players are negotiating a
security deal that rests on the faulty assumptions that each side
has enough sway over the various factions inside Iraq to make an
agreement actually work.
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