Washington Post: Iran Top Threat To Iraq, U.S. Says

[laststeamtrain]

By Karen DeYoung
Saturday, April 12, 2008; A01

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The administration has long tried in vain to build Arab diplomatic and economic support for the Iraqi government. But the Arabs, led by Saudi Arabia, consider Shiite Iran a competitor for regional dominance and have rejected Maliki as "a stooge for Tehran," as one U.S. official called him.

"The Saudis appear to feel that the current Iraqi government is pretty much in thrall to Iran," said a State Department official involved in Middle East policy. The administration's hope, "in the wake of Maliki's decisions on Basra," the official said, "is that the Saudis will take a step back and take another look."

In a news conference Thursday, Crocker dismissed Arab concerns about a recent visit to Baghdad by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "It's not the fact of the Ahmadinejad visit, but the absence of visits by other neighbors that it's important to focus on. There hasn't been a single visit, even by an Arab cabinet minister, to Baghdad. As Iraq grapples with the challenges Iran is posing, it could certainly do with some Arab support."

After consultations with Crocker and Petraeus this week, Bush cut short their Washington visit and dispatched them to Riyadh. During a luncheon at The Washington Post, Crocker said that at a White House meeting Thursday morning, they "reviewed where we are in Iraq."

The message to the Saudis, he said, "is going to be . . . it is time, more than time, for the Arab states to step forward and engage constructively with Iraq. Get their embassies open, get ambassadors on the ground, consider visits, implement debt relief, treat Iraq like the country it is, which is a central part of the Arab world."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/11/AR2008041101606.html?nav=rss_world/mideast/iraq

[SpiralHawk]

1. "I 'believe' they have WMDs. Smirk." - Commander AWOL

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

2. Barbara Boxer put it very well in the hearing with Betrayus. Why did the Pres. of Iran get kisses &

flowers from Iraq, while Bush has to fly into Iraq in the dead of night????