Opportunities for foreign influence

BAGHDAD: If government formation in Iraq is to be compared with that of other countries, the two most distinguishing characteristics of the Iraqi case would be the lengthy time involved and the influence of foreign countries.
Since the March 7, 2010 national elections, the number of visits by Iraqi political leaders and delegations to countries in the region has been phenomenal. The daily headlines regularly report on meetings between Iraqi politicians and leaders from the region. Nor is it uncommon to see on television a politician who tries to justify his own or his party members' visits to foreign countries while simultaneously accusing his opponents of compromising Iraq's interests in the course of their visits to recruit foreign support. In a TV interview, Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki remarked that the influence of regional countries on Iraqi political parties generates complications in the government formation process because of the conflicting interests of these countries. Politicians from diverse political parties differ on many things, but not on this remark.
After the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime in 2003, most regional Arab countries did not welcome political change in Iraq. Still, they chose to be passive observers. Iran and Turkey, on the other hand, engaged Iraq very actively, though in different ways. As the security situation in Iraq improved in 2008, the Arab countries, realizing that Iraq had survived and that they would miss the train because of their non-engagement policy, began to interact with Iraq. Their ultimate objective was to influence the Iraqi national elections and attempt to place their allies in key government positions. To the casual observer, Iraq's political space now looks like a political chess board, with many players: the US, Iran, Turkey and the Arab states.
That said, the picture is not as gloomy as it may seem, for three reasons. Firstly, foreign influence on Iraqi political parties has its limits. It is true that each major foreign player in Iraq can put a stick in the wheels of a candidate it opposes. But it is also true that no single foreign player is able alone to maneuver its ally into winning a race. The United States with all its resources did not succeed in bringing the Iraqia list into an alliance with the State of Law list to form a government as it had planned. Nor do Washington's plans to keep the Sadrists out of key government positions appear to be working. Iran, the second big player in Iraq, failed to make the Shia parties unite and nominate a single candidate for prime minister. Iran's closest Iraqi ally, the Islamic Supreme Council, is now the major obstacle to Iran's plan for government formation. Then too, the Arab countries' plan to maneuver Iraqia leader Iyad Allawi into the prime minister's post is now widely estimated to be infeasible.
Secondly, over the long term, mutual influence between Iraq and regional and other foreign countries will be determined by economic and geopolitical facts, not by opportunities for intervention in Iraq created by the current political divide. It is not difficult to foresee Iraq emerging as an influential regional power within the next few years.
Thirdly, foreign engagement and intervention in Iraqi government formation, with all its negative impact, brings with it an opportunity to improve Iraq's relations with the region once the government is formed. Each political party realizes now more than ever that it needs good relations with all or most of the region's countries if it is going to have a shot at government leadership. Thus, the Iraqia bloc — which is supported by some regional countries — first led an anti-Iran election campaign, then, after the election, began to build bridges to Iran through visits there as well as meetings with the Iranian ambassador in Baghdad.
Iraqis also witnessed Shia leaders visiting Amman, Damascus, Cairo and other Arab capitals. Generally, the visits aimed to build confidence and gain acceptance by these countries of the Shia leaders' anticipated roles in the government to be formed. Such outreach activities and partisan and personal-relations building will widen the opportunity of establishing better relations between Iraq and these countries once the government is formed, given that most if not all of these parties will be part of it.
Even before the formation of a government, some positive signs of improved relations with the neighbors have appeared on the horizon. Iraqi officials have reconfirmed Iraq's commitment to recognizing international borders and funding its share in constructing or reconstructing border markers. Kuwait has welcomed this position and expressed its support for Iraq's effort to have Chapter 7 lifted by the United Nations.
PM Maliki's visit to Syria melted the ice between the two countries. An initial agreement to repair and/or construct oil pipelines from Iraq to the Mediterranean Sea through Syria opened a new horizon of strategic economic relations between the two countries.
According to rumors, Iraqia bloc chief Iyad Allawi promised Iranians to build them bridges to the Arabs in the region, using his good personal relations. And though the Saudis remains a challenge, the formation of a representative government in Baghdad may make them, too, change their mind.
Safa A. Hussein is a former deputy member of the dissolved Iraqi Governing Council. He served as a brigadier general in the Iraqi Air Force. Currently he works in the Iraqi National Security Council. This commentary is published by Daily News Egypt in collaboration with © bitterlemons-international.org.