No immediate danger for Iraq from neighbours

Beirut : The weakness and wealth of Iraq, now shorn of all but 50,000 US troops, tempt its anxious neighbours to vie for influence among Iraqi factions struggling to form a government nearly six months after an election.

Iraq's fledgling army remains ill-equipped to defend the national borders, but for now Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Syria are pursuing their goals mostly by non-military means.

None can count on getting the upper hand.

The 2003 US-led invasion empowered Shiite groups friendly to Iran, but intra-Shiite conflicts, assertive Shiite politicians and core Iraqi nationalism limit even Tehran's sway.

Turkey, using its growing regional influence, diplomatic reach, economic power and new popularity in the Arab world to act as a soft-spoken counterweight to Iran, advocates bringing Sunnis and Kurds, as well as Shiites, into any new government in Baghdad.

Although the US combat mission ends this week without an agreed Iraqi government in place to check spurts of violence, adjacent countries seem less inclined to revive the widespread bloodletting that threatened to consume Iraq a few years ago.

"In 2005, Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia were all feeding the violence in Iraq; the United States was adrift without a strategy; and the Iraqi government and security forces were barely existent," said Eurasia Group analyst David Bender.

Today, he argued, those neighbours preferred stability in Iraq, Iraqi security forces had improved and the viability of the Iraqi state was not being threatened as it was in 2005.

Less meddling

Even patchy progress in state-building, almost from scratch after the United States removed Saddam Hussain, banned his Baath Party and disbanded the army, has helped cap outside meddling.

"The stronger the state in terms of capacity and legitimacy, the weaker the regional factors," said Beirut-based sociologist Falah Abdul Jaber. "So we are in better shape than in 2004-8."

He said foreign powers had to reckon with Iraqi leaders who had gained strength from their grip on the government, the state and its resources. They could not just dictate orders.

Jaber cited Iran's failure to persuade its closest Shiite allies to swing behind acting Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki after the indecisive March vote narrowly gave former premier Eyad Allawi the biggest single bloc in parliament.

"Moqtada Al Sadr and Ammar Al Hakim refused to endorse [Al] Maliki, and [Al] Maliki refused to join hands with them despite tremendous, unbelievable pressure from the Iranians," he said.

Secular Turkey, ruled by a moderate Sunni Islamist party, looks askance at any line-up that would allow Shiite factions to exclude disenchanted minority Sunnis from power — a scenario that dismays Saudi Arabia and many other Arab countries.

They see a share of power for Allawi, a secular Shiite who won many Sunni votes in the March election, as the best way to help reintegrate Sunnis into Iraqi politics to avoid any return to the Sunni insurgency that helped Al Qaida militants flourish.

The Americans, who were impressed when Al Maliki defied Iranian wishes and attacked Al Sadr's Mahdi Army militia in 2008, also want an inclusive Baghdad government, perhaps one aligning Allawi's bloc with that of Al Maliki and a Kurdish alliance.