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Featured Commentary

Iraq’s Regional Impact

By Ellen Laipson, former vice chair, National Intelligence Council; President & CEO, The Henry L. Stimson Center. Interview with Middle East Bulletin.

posted on 03/10/08

Q: What impact has the Iraq war had on its neighbors and the region?

I think the Iraq War has created a secondary crisis of insecurity for most of Iraq’s neighbors. While the Arab governments understood that we were quite serious about getting rid of Saddam Hussein, I think they were quite startled and unhappy that the transition was to a new form of instability in Iraq, not to a new, stable government of some kind. I think most of them had expected that we would put in another strong man, or that we would at least want to achieve some kind of governmental stability in Iraq. I don’t think they had anticipated that there would be such uncertainty and volatility in Iraq. Clearly, at least two of Iraq’s neighbors - Syria and Jordan - have experienced a very direct and immediate spillover effect of Iraq: the refugee problem. Some of Iraq’s other neighbors have simply closed their borders and prevented refugees from coming in. So they’ve been able to act defensively to prevent some of Iraq’s problems from spilling over into their own countries. But, I would say, in general, Iraq’s neighbors see the war and the decision to topple Saddam as a net negative from the perspective of their national interest.

Q: How do you think that the region perceived the recent visit by Iranian President Ahmadinejad to Iraq?

Well, I think it reminds everyone that Iran has been one of the only beneficiaries of the American decision to topple Saddam Hussein. The Iranians have now been freed of the neighbor that they loathed. They had a decade-long war with Iraq, after all. So the Iranians benefit because Saddam is gone; they benefit because there is now a Shia government in Baghdad; and they benefit because they’re watching American power contracting or declining in the region. Ahmadinejad’s visit was only a symbol of a phenomenon that we have understood and known for quite some time, which is that Iraq and Iran will have a relationship that is unique and important, and there are forms of interdependence between Iraq and Iran that the United States cannot control or necessarily influence.

Q: How do you assess the attempts to address regional security in the series of Iraq and its neighbors meetings that have been held over the past year?

The meetings that some of the neighbors – Egypt, Turkey and others – have convened for Iraq to meet with its neighbors and discuss security have been productive in a tactical sense. They have allowed people in ministries to meet their counterparts and work on border security and work on various very practical arrangements. That’s certainly positive, but it’s insufficient. It does not mean that the Arab states have developed very strategic policies towards Iraq. It does not mean that the Arab states have decided to resume normal diplomatic relations, make important economic investments, and in some cases they haven’t even decided whether to forgive the debt from the Saddam era. Those meetings are necessary, and they have accomplished some short-term, practical work. But they are not sufficient to mean that Iraq’s integration into the region has been accomplished.

Q: Can you elaborate on what you think needs to get done in order to integrate Iraq into the region?
I think Iraq’s Arab neighbors need to come to terms with the fact that Iraq has a new constitution and a new government. They have to try to support the independence and sovereignty of that government. And I think that they are deeply conflicted.

I don’t think that the burden should be all on them, though. I think the Iraqis also have to demonstrate that they are a competent government, that they can maintain the territorial integrity of Iraq and that they can demonstrate that there is a rule of law and people who are violent are subjected to the law and to various penalties. So, Iraq has to behave like a normal state. And then the neighbors have to treat it like a normal state. And they’re not there yet.

The absence of normal relations between Iraq and its Arab neighbors creates yet another opportunity for Iranian influence to be preponderant. It was natural, you could argue, that Iran would have a special relationship with Iraq once Iraq had a Shia majority government. You could argue that, though I don’t think it’s a one dimensional issue – Iran has to treat Iraq in its diversity as a normal state. But, my point is that with the Arabs still either disapproving or too worried about security to really establish a robust presence in Baghdad and to engage with different parts of Iraqi society, it leaves a vacuum that Iran is able to fill. So it gives yet another advantage to Iran relative to its other neighbors.

Q: Beyond Iraq, how do the Arab Gulf states achieve collective security that includes Iraq?

I’m not sure that the Gulf Arab states have decided that they want collective security. They want regional security, they want national security. These are relatively young states: Saudi Arabia is an older state, but the smaller Gulf States got their independence in some cases in the sixties and seventies. These are countries that are still trying to establish deep national institutions, including armed forces, and they are not yet willing or interested, I think, in doing what the European Union has done. They’re just not at that stage in their own political history or evolution. They did create the Gulf Cooperation Council, which to some extent is a regional platform in which they can discuss shared security concerns. But the GCC was not really intended to have a military component to it. There is a soft security component to it, if you will, but we don’t see any interest in creating a NATO in the Middle East region or something like that. I think we have to be careful of imposing models from the European or the American experience onto this region. There is not yet an interest in that kind of a forum.

In addition, they’ve traditionally turned to outsiders to play either a balancing role or to bring in some kind of hegemonic stability through larger military power. The British played it in the first half of the twentieth century and the United States has played it since after World War II, or since the independence of the Trucial states in the Gulf littoral. As long as we are there, as long as we have special security ties to some of the key states in the region, there is even less willingness or ability to create a purely regional security architecture.

Q: What should the United States be doing in terms of Iraq and its neighbors and security?

The United States is already working very, very hard to get the neighbors to engage with Iraq. It is working on forgiveness of the debt and looking for forums for the Iraqi government to engage with its neighbors. Iraqis participate in the Arab League and the Islamic Conference and various fora that already exist and the United States supports all of that. In the end, the United States isn’t in the room when Arabs heads of state meet each other, so there is a limit to how much this is something that we can control or shape. It is also about building trust between leaders. The Arab incumbent governments did not know Prime Minister Maliki, they were not familiar with all the Shia political groupings in Iraq that were largely in exile in Iran, or Syria etc. So it takes time for these relationships to develop and create conditions of trust in a very personalized system of politics. And the United States cannot participate in, or influence, all of those dynamics.

Q: Do you think that in terms of trying to mitigate the conflict in Iraq, the United States is doing enough in terms of regional diplomacy?

My point is that the United States has a deep interest in working directly with the Iraqis. We talk to the region. We badger and encourage and cajole to participate in these regional meetings. But we should not presume that we can be inside these Arab-to-Arab meetings or relationships. I think that the purely regional dynamic of this is something that the United States can only influence up to a limited extent.

Q: How should the United States be dealing with Iran in terms of Iraq?

The fact that the United States and Iran have not established any kind of sustainable channel of communication has also added extra tension to the situation. You can see that Iraq is virtually an arena of competition for the United States and Iran.

Iran feels that time is on its side, that eventually the United States will leave and Iran will have established very deep ties in Iraq and will be the outside player that has more influence on Iraq than any other single outside player. The United States has in the short term tried to persuade Iran to be a more constructive player: not be one of the sources of the means of violence in Iraq, not be contributing to the instability in Iraq. And to some extent, there has been progress. The Iranians insist that they, too, want a stable and peaceful Iraq. They have a multifaceted policy toward Iraq – they both want stability and they want the capacity to have leverage and coercive influence over Iraqi parties including through anti-U.S. violence. So, our interests certainly do not align perfectly. Strategically, the Iranians feel that in the long run, they will be a more important player in Iraq than we will be. And this is a painful price for the United States to bear so long as U.S.-Iran relations are as tense as they are and so long as the United States and Iran are in a virtual competition for influence in the region.

Q: So you would advocate a different Iran policy from the one currently in place?

I would advocate a different Iran policy for its own sake, not just as it relates to Iraq. I think that we’ve been in a stagnant and frustrating situation for many, many years and not just during this administration. But, we need to be bolder and take more risks in trying to get on a more constructive path with Iran.

Part of the problem is that Iran doesn’t want such a change in the relationship. Iranian politicians benefit politically, at least in the short run, from having the United States as an adversary not having to make compromises to reach a more stable situation with Washington. But, I think that it is regrettable that we are stuck in this standoff with Iran, and that it has had adverse consequences for what we’ve been trying to accomplish in Iraq.