For months Iraq has been in turmoil as political wrangles and grave sectarian violence continue to grip the country. A general election is due in a few weeks, and many fear that it will not bring peace because Iraq's political system has broken down. National efforts to resolve the sectarian conflicts in the country have failed as rival factions have remained entrenched in their positions on a wide variety of disputes, primarily regarding power and wealth sharing. This has prompted frustration among ordinary Iraqis, who see the chances of defusing the situation peacefully shrink and ethno-sectarian struggles escalate as their country plunges deeper into violence. The question now is whether world and regional powers will be able to assemble the diplomatic strength required to guide the country out of its current impasse where the Iraqis themselves have failed. The Arab Summit held in Kuwait this week ignored the worsening situation in Iraq despite its direct bearing on regional stability and peace. Little attention was paid to the country at the summit, which ended on Wednesday with delegates focussing on other Middle East issues. However, the United States and Iran, foreign nations accused of meddling in Iraq, have reportedly succeeded in easing the current tensions to pave the way for the 30 April elections. While Iran has sent its point man in Iraq to the country, the United States has also dispatched its top diplomat on Iraqi affairs to Baghdad in what the Iraqi media have described as separate mediation efforts to solve the on-going crisis. The story goes that the two emissaries managed to head off further deterioration in the strained relationships between Iraq's main communities, though there has been no talk about durable solutions to the country's problems. US envoy Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq Brett McGurk has apparently been able to broker an oil deal between the Shia-led government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Authority that had helped to achieve a breakthrough on the state budget. Under the agreement, Iraqi Kurdistan will export crude oil via the country's main oil marketing company, potentially removing a major obstacle in a dispute with the central government over oil exports. McGurk, who shuttled between Baghdad and Iraqi Kurdistan, said his mission was part of US commitments to Iraq under the Strategic Framework Agreement that cleared the way for the US troop withdrawal in 2011. The “US is proud to stand with the Iraqi people, equidistant from all political blocs, as a neutral broker and facilitator where appropriate,” McGurk wrote on his Twitter account on Saturday. “The United States will continue to serve as a neutral broker with all sides as talks accelerate in the coming weeks,” US Vice President Joe Biden later said in a statement. The Kurdistan Regional Government had earlier insisted on taking oil exports into its own hands through a pipeline it has built bypassing the central government. But a statement following McGurk's shuttle mission said it had agreed to export 100,000 barrels of oil per day through the Iraqi pipeline network from 1 April “as a good will gesture” until the issue was solved. Some media outlets have also suggested that McGurk was engaged in mediation efforts to end the four-month standoff in Iraq's western province of Anbar between the Shia-led government and Sunni insurgents. The US mediation reportedly involved the withdrawal of the Iraqi army from the cities of Ramadi and Fallujah in return for new security arrangements that would give local authorities a larger say in policing the province. As for Iran, Iraqi media outlets have suggested that general Qasim Soleimani, Iran's most influential intelligence official, visited Baghdad's Green Zone last week in a bid to defuse an internecine dispute that threatens the ruling Shia coalition government. Soleimani has reportedly succeeded in brokering a tentative truce between Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki and other top Shia leaders who have been engaging in a nasty war of words in a highly polarised election campaign. According to different accounts, Soleimani, who supervises Iranian foreign policy in Iraq, pressured the Shia leaders to mend their fences in order to avert the breakdown of the Shia alliance ahead of next month's polls. Tense relations between Al-Maliki and Shia leaders Amar Al-Hakim and Muqtada Al-Sadr have been further strained in recent months as Iraqis remain split over Al-Maliki's attempts to bolster his chances for a third term in office as prime minister. Iran has remained tight-lipped about Soleimani's business in Iraq, but Iraqi media have reported that he was involved in attempts to resolve the disputes between Al-Maliki and the Kurdistan Regional Government and Sunni politicians over ongoing disputes with his government. But the question remains of whether McGurk and Soleimani were trying to provide a way out for Iraq, or whether their initiatives were just part of efforts to consolidate a détente between the two countries following Iran's historic nuclear deal last year. Few Iraqis are convinced that Iran and the United States have the good will to help Iraq end its lingering tragedy, no matter what initiatives they are putting forth. Many fear instead that Iran and the United States may now turn their country into a playground as they try to assemble a regional package that could ease the path for a larger geostrategic deal. Iraqis who have seen their bickering leaders fail to end the bloodletting in the country and heal a divided nation consider the reports about the peace efforts by the two foreign countries to be too good to be true. The Arab-Kurdish schism in particular is wider than what can be bridged by flamboyant diplomacy or self-congratulatory tweets. Soon after McGurk flew back to Washington, Kurdish politicians resumed their criticism of Al-Maliki's government over its policy towards Kurdistan. Many Kurdish MPs said that they would continue to boycott the parliament over the budgetary dispute. The relationship between Iraq's semi-independent northern region and Baghdad has remained at a low ebb since December, when Kurdistan completed a 400,000 barrels a day pipeline that will allow the region to export oil independently through Turkey. Baghdad retaliated by cutting off the region's revenues. In one of his most scathing attacks against the Kurds, Al-Maliki warned this week that Kurdistan could not stand with its oil. “The Kurds had the illusion that they could control the oil in the north themselves. They believed that neighbouring Turkey would support their plans. But the Turks are not Kurdistan's sponsor. On the contrary, they could devour the Kurds in one bite,” he told the German Der Spiegel magazine in an interview. “The Kurds only have a future as a part of Iraq… And only Iraq can safeguard the production and export of the oil,” he said. The relationship between the Kurds and the country's Shias also took a nose dive this week following the murder of a Shia journalist by a member of the Kurdish presidential guards. Tensions rose at the scene of the murder after the shooting sparked ethnic fever among the mourners and protesters shouting anti-Kurdish slogans. Al-Maliki himself rushed to the scene, where he stood over the body of the slain journalist and vowed that he would personally avenge his death. “It is my responsibility to avenge this killing. Blood will be shed for blood,” Al-Maliki told the state-owned Iraqiya television channel as he left the scene. Such anger reveals a deep-seated hostility that can only worsen the already blazing bickering between the Kurds and the Shia-led government. Kurdish politicians condemned what they termed anti-Kurdish chauvinism and demanded that the Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani stand up to Al-Maliki. Soleimani also seems to have failed to achieve a breakthrough in the relationship between Al-Maliki and his key Shia rivals. Soon after he left Baghdad, the two camps escalated their rhetoric. In launching his group's election campaign on Friday, Al-Sadr called on all Iraqis to participate in the forthcoming elections to prevent “thieves” and “beneficiaries” from gaining power. Al-Sadr, who had denounced Al-Maliki earlier as a “tyrant,” called on his followers to go to the polls en masse in order to prevent Iraq from falling again to a “dictatorship.” Overall, it is bloody business as usual in Iraq, where politics is run by rival warlords and greedy political leaders who compete for power and resources. At the same time, neither Iran nor the United States can claim that it has a solution to the Iraqi crisis because these countries are part of the problem. Iraq needs patriotic, foresighted and honest leaders who must do everything they can to stave off the country's collapse with the help of friends who are backed by as much outside advice as the country can stomach. Unfortunately, as the Kuwait Summit and all previous Arab gatherings have shown, Iraq has no real friends that it can reach out to in the present crisis. Tehran and Washington will fill the vacuum in the meantime.
