Well, for those of us who thought that the Iraq security talks are an optimistic beginning to a possible retrieval from the failed chaotic state that the country is in today (I was one of them), we must rethink. It is undoubted that for any solution to work in Iraq, Iran must cooperate, which is probably why the US policy failed in a big way initially too. Iran’s role in Iraq’s stability cannot be ignored. But it seems that the US is too late to have realised and acted upon that. The conference which was started by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki with an appeal for all participants to help ease his country’s plight and prevent the violent conflict here from spilling over into the entire Middle East, went into the shambles soon after.
The conference that started in Baghdad recently saw its proceedings filled with diplomatic clashes between US and Iran. U.S. and Iranian envoys traded harsh words and blamed each other for the crisis persisting in Iraq. Labid Abbawi, a senior Iraqi Foreign Ministry official who attended the meeting, confirmed that an argument broke out between the Iranian and American envoys. U.S. envoy David Satterfield at one point even pointed to his briefcase which he said contained documents proving Iran was arming Shiite Muslim militias in Iraq. Iran’s chief envoy Abbas Araghchi shot back that
Your accusations are merely a cover for your failures in Iraq
Other developments of the conference included pleading remarks by the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad who urged nations bordering Iraq - which include Syria and Iran - to increase their assistance to al-Maliki’s government, saying
the future of Iraq and the Middle East is the defining issue of our time
Also, Al-Maliki, a Shiite, appealed for international help to sever networks aiding extremists and warned that Iraq’s growing sectarian bloodshed could spill across the Middle East. He asserted:
(Iraq) needs support in this battle that not only threatens Iraq but will spill over to all countries in the region
In all, although the conference opened with every nation having a fair chance of expressing its security concerns vis-a-vis Iraq, it was clear that Washington and Tehran share nothing in common. The U.S. military has consistently insisted that Iranian weapons, including a new generation of powerful roadside bombs, have killed more than 170 U.S. and coalition troops here since mid-2004. These remarks have been strongly denied by the officials. The Iranians essentially feel that the US is insensitive to its needs, and this grudge must be mended for any form of talks to succeed. This conference may be a ‘first step’, but the second step is the one to look out for.
Via: Associated Press
