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Analysis: Wary Neighbors Meet on Iraq

Council on Foreign Relations

May 2, 2007
Prepared by: Lionel Beehner

The stakes are high and the RSVPs in. Top officials from the Middle East, in addition to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, will meet in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, for a May 3-4 conference to tackle issues of security and power-sharing in Iraq. The meeting marks the second go-around of regional talks aimed at breaking Iraq’s political stalemate and reaching a settlement on a security plan (AP) that is amenable to all of Iraq’s neighbors, both Sunni and Shiite. Debt relief, reconstruction aid, and other economic issues are also expected to be on the agenda.

But the primary issue is whether Saudi Arabia and Iran can control fighters they support in Iraq that are responsible for the bulk of the country’s violence. The Saudis want to ensure that Iraq does not become a puppet state of Tehran, whereby greater Iranian influence on the Arabian Peninsula could unsettle Saudi Arabia’s own Shiite minorities. Iran, which fought an eight-year war with Saddam’s forces in the 1980s, wants guarantees that Iraq’s Sunni minorities never reach power and pose another military threat. The trouble, writes Kamran Bokhari of Stratfor, an intelligence analysis website, is that “Iraq’s Sunni and Shiite communities are so internally factionalized that neither Tehran nor Riyadh is likely to succeed in shutting down the militancy.” Egypt has called for a ninety-day cease-fire in Iraq, but Iraqi officials rejected the idea.

Tensions brew beneath the surface. Arab states are distrustful of the Shiite-led Iraqi government. Prime Minister Nuri-al Maliki was reportedly snubbed by Saudi King Abdullah during his recent tour of the region, ostensibly because of his opposition to certain Sunni groups (RFE/RL) in Iraq.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2007 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.