Meddling Neighbors Undercut Iraq Stability
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WASHINGTON -- Saddam Hussein's Iraq was a regional menace that sent shudders through its neighbors. Today's Iraqi leaders are struggling to restrain the ambitions of the countries that share Iraq's porous borders, eye the country's rich resources and vie for influence.
"All Iraq's neighbors were interfering, albeit in different ways, the Gulf and Saudi Arabia with money, Iran with money and political influence, and the Syrians by all means," Jalal Talabani, Iraq's president and the senior Kurdish official in the government, told Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in a Dec. 10, 2009, meeting, according to a diplomatic cable. "The Turks are 'polite' in their interference, but continue their attempts to influence Iraq's Turkmen community and Sunnis in Mosul."
With American troops preparing to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011, the meddling threatens to aggravate the sectarian divisions in the country and undermine efforts by Iraq's leaders to get beyond bitter rivalries and build a stable government. It also shows how deeply Iraq's leaders depend on the United States to manage that meddling, even as it exposes the increasing limits on America's ability to do so.
Cables obtained by the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks and made available to several news organizations describe flustered Iraqi leaders complaining of interference by manipulative neighbors, some of whom -- in the view of the United States -- do not want it to regain its previous position of power.
"The challenge for us is to convince Iraq neighbors, particularly the Sunni Arab governments, that relations with a new Iraq are not a zero-sum game, where if Iraq wins, they lose," noted a Sept. 24, 2009, cable from Ambassador Christopher R. Hill, which was aptly titled "The Great Game, in Mesopotamia." American diplomatic cables disclosed by WikiLeaks show that Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki's fears about outside interference are so great that he asked President Obama during a July 2009 visit to Washington to stop the Saudis from intervening. Saudi Arabia's efforts to rally the Sunnis, the Iraqi leader complained, were heightening sectarian tensions and providing Iran with an excuse to intervene in Iraqi politics, according to an account of the Oval Office session Mr. Maliki shared with Ambassador Hill.
First Published December 5, 2010 11:51 pm
