Talabani, Maliki complain about foreign interference – WikiLeaks

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki complained about the neighboring countries’ interference in Iraq’s affairs, according to a document published by WikiLeaks website. “Saddam Hussein was a regional menace that sent shudders through its neighbors. Today’s Iraqi leaders are struggling to restrain the ambitions of the countries that share Iraq‘s porous borders, eye the country’s rich resources and vie for influence,” the document quoted the president as saying. “All Iraq‘s neighbors were interfering, albeit in different ways, the Gulf and Saudi Arabia with money, Iran with money and political influence, and the Syrians by all means,” Jalal Talabani told Defense Secretary Robert Gates in a Dec. 10, 2009, meeting, according to a diplomatic cable.”The Turks are ‘polite’ in their interference, but continue their attempts to influence Iraq‘s Turkmen community and Sunnis in Mosul.” With U.S. troops preparing to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011, the meddling threatens to aggravate the sectarian divisions in the country and undermine efforts by Iraq‘s leaders to get beyond bitter rivalries and build a stable government. It also shows how deeply Iraq‘s leaders depend on the United States to manage the meddling, even as it exposes the increasing limits on America’s ability to do so. Cables obtained by the antisecrecy organization WikiLeaks and made available to several news organizations describe flustered Iraqi leaders complaining of interference by manipulative neighbors, some of whom — in the view of the United States — do not want it to regain its previous position of power. “The challenge for us is to convince Iraq neighbors, particularly the Sunni Arab governments, that relations with a new Iraq are not a zero-sum game, where if Iraq wins, they lose,” noted a Sept. 24, 2009, cable from Ambassador Christopher Hill, which was aptly titled “The Great Game, in Mesopotamia.” Jockeying for influence in Iraq by outside countries has been going on ever since Hussein was ousted, hardly surprising given Iraq‘s strategic position in the Middle East, its vast oil reserves, its multisectarian population and the fact that it is a nascent, if unsteady, democracy largely surrounded by undemocratic neighbors. SH (S) 1