• Regional Conference

There seems to be an orgy of enthusiastic triumphalism about a US reversal of policy towards Iran and Syria flowing from the regional conference to be held in Baghdad shortly.

This strikes me as pretty similar to the immediate post-November election triumphalism about the Democrat victory forcing a US withdrawal.

Its worth remembering that the US, Iran and Syria have attended regional conferences on Iraq going back to November 23, 2004

The latest regional conference was in fact announced by the Iraqi government in December 2006 with a strong stress on it having to be held in Baghdad and be confined to supporting the Iraqi government rather than interfering in its affairs.

This was partly a pre-emptive move in response to rumours that the Baker Commission would be proposing a regional conference to settle Iraq's future. The move was successful as the Iraq Study Group report likewise ended up stressing that it should be to support the Iraqi government.

As far as I can make out desperate efforts for a deal with Syria that would help save its regime and re-establish a role in Lebanon have been unsuccessful and the Lebanese situation is still moving towards a positive resolution with Hezbollah gaining more proportionate representation in the Government and unified support for international investigation of the Hariri murders.

Iran is not the central problem in Iraq but the US shouting at it as though it is still seems to be helpful for the neighbouring Sunni autocracies to assist Iraqi Sunnis in adapting to national reconciliation with the democratically elected government.

Likewise things still seem to be moving along (though far too slowly) towards national unity under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organization and an end to the international blockade.

All of which will be breathlessly announced by "analysts" as further proof that the Democrats are making enormous headway against the Bush administration's previous policies.

So far it looks like the Democrat "netroots" will just keep demanding tougher "non-binding resolutions" to symbolize their frustration, a demand that can easily be satisfied. But its hard to see how that stuff could go on for the next 2 years.

I can't make out to what extent its an agreed division of labour that the Democrat defeatism takes care of making the threat of US withdrawal unless the Iraqi government accommodates national reconciliation with the Sunnis look realistic, while at the same time stimulating Sunni fears that the next US administration might do a deal with Iran so they had better reconcile with the Iraqi government now.

Seems unlikely that they are helping consciously as they are setting themselves up for major problems in the next Presidential election both if things get worse and they end up having to deal with it themselves and if things get better and they are stuck with things having got better against their bitter defeatism.

Meanwhile the crescendo of hysteria about a US war with Iran seems to be having more effect on US politics than I anticipated. (I still think its primarily aimed at influencing Sunni and Israeli politics but I wrongly thought that neither Iranians nor Americans would pay much attention to it since it is so obviously silly).

As things have turned out there do seem to be an awful lot of Americans convincing themselves that they are making headway in some titanic battle to prevent a clinically insane Bush administration from embroiling the US in a war with Iran.

Fouad Ajami has a much more plausible perspective on the effect of US hostility towards Iran on assisting to undermine the regime.

That isn't a particularly high US priority compared with the Egyptian and Saudi problems but in a situation where they cannot be openly hostile to their real main targets they have done remarkably well with Iranian public opinion. As one would expect there has been a significant decrease from 63% in 2001 to 52% now in unfavourable attitudes towards the US in Iran where the US is hostile to a government the people hate. The trend has been in the opposite direction among the various Arab autocracies that are hated by their people but which the US still describes as "moderate Arab allies".