The two-day international conference on
Iraq's security in Sharm al-Sheikh, Egypt, that
began on Thursday is a landmark event that will
reportedly feature dialogue between Iranian
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki and US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. This is a
significant development that could help thaw the
chilled relations between the US and the Islamic
Republic.
"Iran is in favor of dialogue
and conciliation," President Mahmud Ahmadinejad,
who is on record favoring direct dialogue with the
United States, declared in a
speech on Wednesday. Once again, anticipating the
issue of Iran's nuclear program being raised by
the Americans and wary of the presence of the
United Nations Security Council's permanent five
in Sharm al-Sheikh, Ahmadinejad reiterated that
"Iran is a nuclear country and will not retreat
one iota from its nuclear rights".
There
is another important meeting this week, in London,
where representatives of the so-called "five plus
one" (the Security Council's permanent five of the
US, France, the United Kingdom, China and Russia,
plus Germany) are gathering to discuss what to do
with Iran's continuing defiance of UN resolutions
to stop uranium enrichment and the reported
progress by the European Union's foreign-policy
chief, Javier Solana, regarding his latest meeting
with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali
Larijani. Solana and Larijani are due to meet
again next week.
Returning from a
three-day visit to Iraq, where he met with Grand
Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Larijani told the Iranian
press that Sistani informed him that the US
government has been holding meetings with Iraqi
terrorist groups. These are the Sunni extremists
who have been blowing up Shi'ites by the hundreds
on a monthly basis and, naturally, something that
is disquieting to Iran. Sistani's willingness to
give an audience to Larijani on the eve of the
Iraq conference has high symbolic value, reminding
the world of Iran's close ties to the Shi'ite
power hierarchy in Iraq.
"Iran has so much
influence in Iraq, with both Shi'ites and Sunnis,
that it can wipe out any American and European
plan for Iraq," writes the hardline Iranian daily
Kayhan. In fact, the pre-conference flurry of
diplomatic activities that went into getting
Iran's consent to participate in Sharm al-Sheikh
is itself indicative of the key role played by
Iran with respect to Iraq's stability.
Emphasizing the economic dimension,
Larijani announced that Iran has earmarked US$1
billion for economic assistance to Iraq and in his
meetings in Baghdad he focused on how to help
Iraq's reconstruction. This will certainly be on
top of Iran's agenda at the conference.
According to political commentator Javid
Ghorban Oghli, Iran had serious misgivings about
the location of the conference. Only after serious
lobbying by the Iraqis, led by Foreign Minister
Hoshyar Zibrai, who visited Tehran two weeks ago,
and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who went to
Cairo to make sure about the host country's
intentions, did Iran agreed to participate.
Still, according to a Tehran University
political scientist, Iran is wary of the
conference agenda being pushed by "certain
countries to include a new constitution, the
rehabilitation of Ba'athist officers and their
recruitment into the Iraqi Army, and dialogue
between the Iraqi government and terrorist
groups". Iran is opposed to all these measures and
will likely clash with the Arab voices at the
conference pushing for them.
Another
Iranian concern is that the administration of US
President George W Bush will exploit any dialogue
with Iran in Sharm al-Sheikh for its hostile
intentions against Tehran, by arguing that it went
the extra mile in the diplomatic path to resolve
the nuclear stalemate. "Right now Iran has no
confidence about the US's intentions and Iran's
participation can still backfire in spite of all
the cautions demonstrated by Tehran prior to the
meeting," the same political scientist told this
author, adding that the freedom of Iran's five
diplomats in the United States' hands in Iraq will
be raised by Iran's delegation.
Regarding
the latter, Tehran has announced that the families
of the diplomats will be able to visit them
through the International Red Cross shortly, a
sign of the United States' pre-conference carrot
to Iran.
Also, Iran favors an enhanced
role for the UN in Iraq, which is currently
limited to political affairs and humanitarian
assistance. For instance, in addition to a limited
UN security role, such as in training the Iraqi
police, the UN, which under new Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon has been focusing on international
donor assistance known as the International
Compact, can play a more direct role in the
oversight of reconstruction projects.
On
the security front, the question of militias looms
large at the conference, and here again there is a
big divide between Iran - which favors Muqtada
al-Sadr's Mehdi Army and is critical of the United
States' surge policy that has so far failed to
fill the vacuum of the Shi'ite militias protecting
their neighborhoods - and the Sunni Arabs who want
to see the Mehdi Army disarmed.
The latter
must recognize, however, that with the huge
popularity of Muqtada among the Shi'ite majority
in Iraq, it is virtually impossible to reach any
major breakthrough over Iraq's future without
engaging Muqtada and his supporters.
Clashes between US forces and the Mehdi
Army are on the rise and, if they continue, they
might fuel a new wave of Shi'ite insurgency that
would further complicate the United States' plans
for Iraq.
For the moment, Iran
participates in the conference with a dual
purpose, to maintain and further its support for
the embattled Iraqi regime and, at the same time,
to brandish the card of support for the Shi'ite
insurgency. There might be a small disconnect
between the two approaches, but Iran has a
bi-focal Iraqi policy, one toward the Shi'ite-led
government and the other toward the Shi'ite
people, groups and politico-military factions.
"Iran sees this conference, despite all
its trappings, as only one station in a long
journey, and there will be no magic to make Iraq's
security problems disappear overnight. Those
problems will be around for a long, long time,"
the Tehran University professor said in response
to the author's question about Iran's
expectations.
True, but even incremental
steps for the sake of the much-suffering Iraqi
people are necessary, and in this regard the Sharm
al-Sheikh conference is a welcome development that
will, it is hoped, make a dent in the unfolding
tragedy.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD,
is the author of After Khomeini: New
Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview
Press) and co-author of "Negotiating Iran's
Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs,
Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa
Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's nuclear
potential latent", Harvard International Review,
and is author of Iran's Nuclear
Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.
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