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| Massoud Barzani (top) and Hoshyar Zebari |
Has Iraq decided to turn its back on Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad?
The $64,000 Question came hot on the heels of Iraqi
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari’s address at the opening of the Syrian
opposition groups’ conference in Cairo earlier this week.
Zebari,
whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the Arab League Summit, told the Cairo meeting the Syrian opposition
“is trying to get rid of a totalitarian regime disregarding the (Syrian)
people’s well-being.”
He also said, “We know from our experience in Iraq
what it means to stand up to oppressive regimes.”
Zebari
then called for a peaceful transition of power in Syria, pledging to help in
that endeavor "so that representatives of the Syrian people take over
their political process and build their modern Syrian state."
Zebari’s
utterances suggest Iraq is perhaps pondering what lies ahead across its border,
says senior diplomatic correspondent and political analyst Raghida Dergham today in
her weekly think piece for the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat.
Writing
about an alleged “international understanding on the exit of Assad and his
kinsfolk in exchange for a regime reprieve,” she quotes an unnamed Iraqi official
as saying off the record: “We concluded in light of our international contacts
and first hand observations that developments
on the ground are not going in the regime’s favor. Whole (Syrian) governorates are
no more under central control. The government is one of shabiha and the military.
Russia is having a dialogue with the opposition. Even Iran is opening channels for
dialogue with the opposition. All this prompted us to take clearer and more
assertive stands.”
A more comprehensive analysis of Iraq’s Syria reset
comes from Syrian Kurdish analyst Farouk
Hajji Mustafa.
“In truth,” he also writes for al-Hayat, “the reasons for the shift in Iraq’s diplomatic discourse
can only be explained by two factors”:
1. Multiple
analyses have hinted at an understanding between Russia and the United States
on the way to manage change in Syria. According to these analyses, “change
would be conditional on a balance being struck between the influences of Saudi
Arabia and Iran in the region.” The implication is that “Iran would lose its
supremacy in Lebanon and Iraq in return for keeping the Syrian regime in place
– manifestly at least – until year’s end 2014. This drove the Iraqis to change
their tack and speak accordingly.”
2. The Iraqi
leaders’ internecine power struggle is the other explanation for Baghdad’s new
discourse supportive of the Syrian opposition. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
could be telling Iran he would cross the aisle if it let him down.
Alternatively, “the shift could be traced back to Massoud Barzani,” head of
the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq. In other words, “the new
discourse could be expressing the view of the government in Erbil, not Baghdad.” Barzani has
repeatedly warned Maliki he can change the power balance in Baghdad if it
didn’t stop canoodling with Damascus. The KRG leader, in other words, has put
Maliki on notice that he was putting his alliance with the Kurds at risk.
Hajji Mustafa says in either case the question
remains: “Will Iraq keep up its new Syria pitch?”
