Iraq Steps Back on the Regional Stage (Away From America)

[Purveyor]

BAGHDAD — On Monday morning, the Iraqi foreign minister stood in a marble rotunda of Saddam Hussein’s old Republican Palace, once the heart of the American occupation, and noted that this was where the United States held sway when it “was trying to help us run our country.”

How did that go? “Badly,” he said.

Soon the palace will be the setting for an Arab League summit meeting — a showpiece for a country, once a regional pariah, that is now trying to assert itself on the stage of Middle East affairs at a time when its neighbors are in turmoil.

“It will be very important because of the recent changes and historical developments in other Arab countries,” said Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. “We are ready, Baghdad is ready, to receive all the Arab presidents.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/world/middleeast/12iraq.html?_r=1