Why Iraq snubbed Jordan's King Abdullah

The rift between Iraq’s Shia elite and its Sunni Arab neighbours exploded into the open this week at the Amman summit between Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and US President George W. Bush.

Maliki purposefully cancelled a three-way meeting with Bush and Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Wednesday night because of his severe distrust of Jordan. The Shia government had been angered by Abdullah’s meeting last week with a radical Sunni cleric, Sheikh Hareth al-Dhari, who is wanted for questioning in Baghdad.

“Jordan’s behaviour in the last few weeks is not acceptable… It is not a good time to give King Abdullah or Jordan any positive or major role in what is happening between Iraq and the Americans,” MP Sami al-Askari, who attended the Amman summit, told me yesterday.

Maliki and his Shia advisors are wary of Sunni states as the US bipartisan Iraq Study group puts forward the idea of engaging regional powers to solve Iraq’s problems. The Shia, Iraq’s majority population, who suffered for years under Saddam Hussein, fear their Sunni neighbours want to put the Sunnis back in power.

Another Maliki confidante, MP Haidar al-Abadi, told me before Maliki left for Amman that the premier was seeking assurances from Bush that he would not cut a deal behind his back with Arab neighbours, including Saudi Arabia. Abadi accused Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states of tacitly allowing their citizens to donate money to Iraq’s Sunni insurgency.

Sunni Arab states are terrified by the idea of a powerful Shia bloc in the Middle East. Earlier this year, Egyptian Hosni Mubarak accused Shia Arabs of being more loyal to Iran than their home countries.

Comments

[Nick Martin-Clark]

Your blog is gripping reading. At no doubt some considerable risk to yourself and your contacts you are giving us a chance to get close to what is really going on. The chaos is so terrible it makes us despair but if there is to be a way charted through it it can only be through focussing on the details, digging into the mire, most importantly, getting at the truth. You are rendering a very valuable service.

[Firozali A.Mulla MBA PhD]

Why Iraq snubbed Jordan's King Abdullah

Nanacy Pelosi had the green dress and she is pretty. Mr. Bush does not like Pelosi to go to Iran. So the tiff will carry on till Nancy goes to UK or Bush goes to Iran. I doubt he will, Mullahs do not like him They call him BIG SATAN.
That is the whole crux and bread crubms of the argument. King Abdullah is anti Bush now and Nouri al-Maliki Who is he? Never heard of him before in Iarq. Is he the new British recruit. No wonder the british cahnged the Iran story,It is MAliki They first are happy noe they say Maliki tell them Iran forced them to say bed things. Poronography too Balire is very annaoyed with RAF. Iraq noe not the place it is the waters near Iraq and Iarn,. They will be taken to t courts.