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".... The White House has called him a terrorist. A UN Security Council resolution singles him out as a suitable target of sanctions. So why—if a report leaked to The Economist proves correct—would he recently have had a chat with General Raymond Odierno and Ambassador Christopher Hill, America’s two most senior officials in Baghdad?
The answer is that regional diplomacy requires Iran’s involvement if a stable Iraq is to have a chance of emerging after the election due in January. General Suleimani has great influence in Iraq through a web of politicians and insurgents. It was he who brokered a peace deal last year after Iraq’s security forces fought against the Mahdi Army militia loyal to a Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, who has spent most of the past two years in Iran. With American combat troops due to leave Iraq next year, American officials reluctantly, it seems, turned to General Suleimani. General Odierno and Mr Hill, who deny the event, are said to have met him in the office of Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, who has known the Quds Force commander for decades. “It’s a complicated world,” says an American official. ....... the Americans are seeking to persuade the Iranians that it would be unwise of them to meddle in Iraq’s internal affairs once the American security umbrella has been removed.
They are most unlikely to heed such requests. Iraq’s three beefiest neighbours—Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey—have seen their influence in Baghdad wax as the Americans’ wanes. All three fear lest the vacuum left behind be filled by a regional rival. All three keenly seek to raise their influence—among other things by trying to bolster the electoral chances of those Iraqis with whom they have most in common. The Saudis and Iranians, in particular, are wary of the non-sectarian alliances emerging in the run-up to the election due on January 21st, preferring to back sectarian fronts. Simply put, the Iranians back the Shias and the Saudis back the Sunnis. The Turks back the Turkomans, especially in the oil-rich but disputed area around Kirkuk. Though still wary of Kurdish power in northern Iraq, the Turks have recently been coming to terms with it. But they still fear that an independent Kurdistan evolving in Iraq may encourage Turkish Kurds to seek a similar goal in Turkey.
"The Syrians, too, are loth to be left out, though they have less of a say. They may look to a new front that has emerged in the province of Nineveh, around the city of Mosul, which remains a stronghold of Sunni nationalists and Baathists.....
Whatever General Suleimani may have told his American interlocutors in September, the Iranians have been energetically boosting their sectarian allies, though it is never crystal clear which of Iraq’s various Shia outfits they prefer. Ali Larijani, the speaker of Iran’s own parliament, followed the general to Baghdad to persuade Shias to stick together in a united front rather than form non-sectarian alliances with Sunni Arabs or Kurds, most of whom are Sunni too. “The Iranian pressed us pretty hard,” said an Iraqi confidant of the prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki. So far, Iran’s plea for Shia sectarian purity in Iraqi electoral alliances has fallen on deaf ears. Similarly, the Saudis are said to be trying to persuade their Sunni co-religionists in Iraq to stick together too. Saudi rulers are still loth to accept that Iraqi Sunnis must either play second fiddle or compete alone; if they joined Shia-led alliances, they would be junior partners—yet with more clout than if they ran on their own.
Iran and Syria have long been accused of backing insurgents in Iraq. But regional competition is for the moment being fought out more eagerly in the political arena than on the battlefield. No single alliance is likely to win a majority of seats. So months of horse-trading are likely to ensue after the poll. Iranians, Turks and Saudis will try to mediate. But America no longer seems able to orchestrate a new deal."
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