almotamar.net google washington times - BAGHDAD, March 9 — In a symbolic victory for Iraq, representatives of neighboring countries as well as world powers are gathering here to discuss how they could help stabilize the troubled country.

The meeting, scheduled for Saturday, will be a rare opportunity for Iran and the United States to sit at the same table. Syria, another frequent target of American animosity, will be there too.
But at a practical level the meeting is most important for Iraq, a country teetering on the brink of chaos and in desperate need of help from all its neighbors.
“There is greater recognition now of the dangers of the serious situation in Iraq,” Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, said in an interview. Speaking of his country’s neighbors, he said: “If they don’t do more — and so far they’ve been spectators, saying, ‘Let the Americans have it’ — the consequence will be Iraq’s failure. This would mean spillover, chaos, sectarianism, terrorism and drug trafficking.”
“We expect some actions, not words, not a statement of solidarity and support,” Mr. Zebari said.
The willingness of all of Iraq’s neighbors to come to Baghdad, a city undertaking a large-scale military operation with the influx of thousands of American and Iraqi troops, suggests that they have heard Mr. Zebari’s message. He has been lobbying nonstop for the meeting since last summer, he said.
With representatives of 16 nations and organizations in attendance, it will be the largest meeting of foreign countries in Iraq since a summit meeting of Arab League members in March of 1990, just months before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
“The meeting reflects a recognition on the part of all players that they have no interest in Iraq falling apart, in its partition or in it disintegrating into a failed state,” said Joost Hiltermann, director of the International Crisis Group’s office in Amman, Jordan.
Weapons and fighters flow into the country primarily from Syria and Iran, while Jordan and Syria are bristling about the nearly two million Iraqi refugees who have streamed over their borders. Saudi Arabia and Jordan, countries with overwhelmingly Sunni populations, are distressed about the growing influence of Iran, which is mostly Shiite, in Iraq and the rest of the region.
But the Sunni-majority countries may be partly to blame for that. After the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by American-led forces in 2003, they were reluctant to express public support for Baghdad during the occupation that followed. Iran filled that vacuum.
“Iran was the first government to send a delegation to Iraq,” Mr. Zebari said. “It was during the Governing Council days.” The council was the American-backed governing body formed in the early stages of the occupation. He said most representatives were not arriving until later Friday. The Iranians, however, arrived Thursday.
Mr. Zebari and other Iraqi officials said they hoped that the meeting would be a first step in persuading the United States and Iran, the two countries with the most influence in Iraq, to start working with each other. So far they have preferred to trade barbs, each with an eye to reminding the other of its ability to make life unpleasant.
“We hope Americans and Iranians can talk,” said Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih. “Talking is always useful. We do not want our country to be a card for other interests.”
He added, “Iraq’s stability should be the central issue.”
Mr. Zebari said there would be rooms off the main meeting room where representatives of the two countries could talk privately. The framework of the meeting will be an opening speech by Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, and then a closed session in which each country will have an opportunity to comment. Lunch will be followed by another closed meeting of the entire group.
Officially the meeting is at the level of deputy prime minister, with most countries sending their ambassadors to Iraq to represent them.
But several countries are sending more senior officials as well, and Mr. Zebari said “high-level visitors” from several countries would come.
The United States delegation will include David Satterfield, the senior adviser on Iraq to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and the United States ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad. The deputy foreign minister of Iran, Abbas Araghchi, will attend.
For Baghdad and Washington, a primary goal of the meeting is for Iraq to establish itself as an equal player with its neighbors. Most recently, Iran has treated it more as a client, and Iraq’s relations with Syria have been frosty. During the 1980s, Iraq and Iran fought an eight-year war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, and Iraq invaded Kuwait in August of 1990.
Baghdad has had difficult relations with Turkey over the presence of anti-Turkish Kurdish militants in Iraq’s north, and its relations with Jordan have not been entirely friendly in recent years, despite considerable trade between the countries.
Western diplomats say the hope is that the meeting will result in the formation of three groups that can focus on the three highest-profile problems that Iraq faces with its neighbors: border security, fuel imports and refugees.
Diplomats said they would be watching body language closely, since little concrete was likely to be accomplished in the few hours allotted for the meeting. “I’m hoping the discussion stays at the strategic level,” said a Western diplomat in Baghdad. “It could easily descend into bickering.”
If so, it will not be the first time. At the 1990 Arab summit meeting here, the discussion degenerated into a food fight between Kuwaiti sheiks and angry Iraqi officials.
Most worrisome for everyone is the real possibility that despite diplomatic and military efforts, Iraq will sink further into violence.