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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: foundation who wrote (11916)	11/27/2006 3:40:40 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 219969

in the mean time, the terrorist insurgents must give thanks to the likes of stratfor, bush and co ... per stratfor, still not seeing the darkness Geopolitical Diary: Twisting the Rubik's Cube Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that the United States is "trapped" in Iraq -- and that Iran is prepared to help to extricate it from the Iraqi "quagmire" provided that Washington changes its "bullying" behavior toward Tehran. Ahmadinejad's statements came the same day that a spokesman for Iraqi President Jalal Talabani confirmed he will travel to Tehran on Monday to discuss Iran's role in containing the violence in Iraq. Meanwhile, a top Kurdish member of the Iraqi National Assembly, Mahmoud Othman, said that while the Talabani's visit would be beneficial to Iraq, "a lot depends on the relations between the United States and Iran." Talabani's trip to Tehran comes amid a flurry of diplomatic activity. Both the United States and Iran are having discussions with key players throughout the region, and it appears increasingly likely they will at some point meet with each other as well. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney met with Saudi King Abdullah in Riyadh on Saturday -- likely taking the Saudis, a critical component in any U.S.-Iranian dealings, into confidence on what Washington intends to offer in exchange for Iran's cooperation in stabilizing Iraq. And Jordan will host a meeting between U.S. President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Nov. 29, and Egypt will host the foreign ministers of Iraq's neighboring states Dec. 5, as they explore possible ways to contain the violence in Iraq. Both the Arabs and the Israelis -- for different reasons -- are worried about the implications of a potential U.S.-Iranian accommodation. Naturally, the Bush administration is in quite an awkward position. In order to allay Israeli concerns about Iran's nuclear weapons, Washington could agree to yield a significant degree of influence over Iraq to Tehran. Doing so, however, would be unacceptable to Washington's allies among the Arab Sunni states, as well as Turkey. For its part, Ankara opposes the possibility of partition for Iraq -- as Prime Minister Marouf Bakheet said Saturday in a joint statement with Jordanian King Abdullah II. The diplomatic activity and positioning throughout the region is an important component of the complex negotiations that are crucial to both U.S. and Iranian strategies concerning Iraq. But there is a conundrum. As each of these regional pieces falls into place, what Washington needs is for Tehran to use its influence among the Iraqi Shia to reach a deal with the Sunnis in that state. The Iranians have signaled that they are willing to do this, but for a price: 1) Security for the Iranian regime 2) Recognition of Iranian influence in Iraq 3) Acknowledgment of Iran's dominance in the Persian Gulf and the wider Middle East. Given that price, it would appear that achieving stability within Iraq means destabilizing the regional balance of power. Merely by engaging Tehran in direct discussions, the United States would, in a de facto sense, be empowering Iran. And Washington could not very well walk away from the table without conceding to some of Iran's demands for influence. No matter how you cut the cards, the rise of Iran as a regional power is all but inseparable from any solution on Iraq. Washington will want to limit that power, using the fine print of any political negotiations, but success is far from assured -- and the precise status of Iran ultimately may not be the most important consideration. As the results of elections in Bahrain this weekend showed, the Shia of the region are already gathering strength.