Iraq to Lead Diplomatic Conference With Iran, Syria

[Lex]

U.S. Agrees to Meeting with Iran and Syria

The Bush administration has agreed to sit around a negotiating table with official representatives of Iran and Syria next month -- as part of a planned regional conference in Baghdad to discuss ways to stabilize Iraq.
In joining the Baghdad conference, the administration is tiptoeing into what has become one of the most contentious issues in the roiling Iraq debate. Critics for months have been urging the administration to end its diplomatic isolation of Iran and Syria and begin a constructive dialogue with them about how to stabilize Iraq. Even former secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who has generally supported administration policy on Iraq, argued in an op-ed piece last weekend that it's time to end the diplomatic quarantine and convene an international conference on Iraq.
The Iraqi government is expected to announce the regional conference as early as Tuesday. The government will invite representatives of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- Britain, France, Russia, China and the United States -- in addition to all of its Mideast neighbors.
Though it will bring together American, Syrian and Iranian representatives, the Baghdad meeting doesn't signal a direct U.S. diplomatic engagement with Iran and Syria. A senior State Department official said Monday night that it wasn't likely there would be separate bilateral meetings with Iran or Syria. Rather, the planned Baghdad meeting is an extension of the administration's current policy of using the Iraqi government as the channel for discussions with Iran and Syria about Iraqi security.
The initial meeting, tentatively planned for the first half of March, will be at the ambassadorial level, the State Department official said. The American representative will be Zalmay Khalilzad, the current U.S. ambassador to Iraq, or his successor, Ryan Crocker. Khalilzad has long favored direct meetings with Iran. If the initial meeting goes well, a second meeting at the foreign minister level is planned for April.
The agenda for the March meeting is still vague, but U.S. officials said they hope Iraq's neighbor countries will discuss how they can support the new Iraqi government diplomatically, politically and in security matters. Iran and Syria haven't formally agreed to attend the meeting, but "they haven't said no," said the State Department official, and the Iraqis expect they will attend.
The trick for the administration has been to gain Iranian and Syrian help in Iraq -- or at least, a cessation of harmful activity -- without conceding ground on the larger issues of paramount importance to those countries. The Baghdad conference appears to offer such a finesse. It begins contact, but leaves diplomatic "grand bargains" -- that would address the Iranian nuclear program or Syria's role in Lebanon -- for other times and venues.
News of the Baghdad meeting comes as the administration is facing severe pressure from congressional Democrats over its Iraq policy -- especially the planned "surge" or 21,000 additional U.S. troops into the country. The administration surely is hoping that this show of international support for the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will quell some of the criticism in Washington. Administration officials are also likely to tout Monday's plan on a new agreement for sharing Iraqi oil and gas revenues among the different regions and sects as a sign of progress.
But even as these diplomatic and legislative agreements are reached, the bombs continue to explode in Baghdad. And with all the leading Democratic presidential candidates already committed to plans for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq even as the Bush administration sends in more troops, there is little ground for bipartisan war policy.

POSTED BY DAVID IGNATIUS
WASHINGTON POST ON FEBRUARY 26, 2007 9:12 PM

[Lex]

Iraq is spearheading a new diplomatic initiative that will invite Iran and Syria to a spring "neighbors conference" that also will include the United States, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a Senate committee this afternoon.
The United States' participation in the conference could suggest a change of heart for the Bush administration, which has largely resisted calls for dialogue with Iran and Syria -- nations it has accused of aiding terrorists during the four-year-old Iraq war.
"The violence occurring within the country has a decided impact on Iraq's neighbors," Rice told the Senate Appropriations Committee, which is considering the administration's nearly $100 billion request to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. "And Iraq's neighbors as well as the international community have a clear role to play in supporting the Iraqi government's effort to promote peace and national reconciliation within the country."
Rice did not tell the committee if the United States would engage in direct talks with Iran and Syria during the conference, scheduled for April. The administration has repeatedly charged that Iran has supplied deadly weapons to insurgents in Iraq and that it is using its nuclear program to build atomic weapons. The administration has accused Syria of harboring Iraqi insurgents and allowing weapons and fighters to cross its border into Iraq.
But Rice told the committee the administration has listened to pleas by many Democrats, some Republicans and the Iraq Study Group to broaden diplomatic efforts in the Middle East.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki "believes and President Bush and I agree that success in Iraq requires the positive support of Iraq's neighbors," Rice told the committee. "This is one of the key findings, of course, of the Iraq Study Group and it is an important dimension that many in the Senate and in the Congress have brought to our attention."
In a reference to critics of the administration's war policy, Rice said: "We have listened and we want you to know that."
Some members of the appropriations committee did not seem convinced.
"I know the administration has a different opinion," Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) told Rice, "but it has been my experience that when we talk one on one to other countries that there is an element of respect and dignity, which goes a long way to trying to reach some understanding."
Specter told Rice there's strong precedent for resolving conflict through diplomacy.
"We know that President Reagan called the Soviet Union the evil empire and then shortly thereafter had negotiations," Specter said, before adding: "The most famous illustration is President Nixon going to China."
Specter called the planned conference a "good development" because "diplomacy is an indispensable element" in resolving conflict.
Rice said invitees to the conference will include Iraq's "immediate neighbors" in the Middle East, the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (France, Britain, China, Russia and the United States) as well as Canada, Germany, Italy and Japan, who are members of the G-8.
"I would note that the Iraqi government has invited all of its neighbors, including both Syria and Iran, to attend" the conference, Rice told the Senate committee. Later, she said she did not know if Iran and Syria have accepted the invitations.
A preparatory meeting -- attended by ambassadors from the participating nations -- will be held in Baghdad around March 11, Rice said. And the ministerial-level conference would follow "as early as the first half of April," she said.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates also testified at the Senate hearing today. Asked how long American troops will remain in Iraq, he said the United States will have a presence in the country for "a long period of time" but at a fraction of today's troop strength.
Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called on the administration to mount a "robust" diplomatic effort in the Middle East.
"Democrats and the bipartisan Iraq Study Group have made clear for months that America must be willing to talk with all major nations in the region, including Iran and Syria, if we are ever to find the necessary political solution in Iraq," Reid said in a statement. "Today's announcement is a first step, but it is not enough on its own."

By Bill Brubaker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 27, 2007; 6:24 PM