As friction with Arab neighbors intensifies, Iraq growing ever closer to I

[tocqueville]

By Hannah Allam, Knight Ridder Newspapers
1 hour, 25 minutes ago

BAGHDAD, Iraq -The Iraqi government is becoming increasingly estranged from its Arab neighbors even as it grows closer to Iran, a trend that threatens the region's longtime balance of power and may make Iraq less influential in regional affairs.

In the nearly two and a half years since Saddam Hussein was toppled, not a single Arab nation has dispatched an ambassador to Baghdad, and most have closed what embassies were here. The Arab League has yet to make good on promises to open a Baghdad office. Regional media, typically state-funded, still portray Iraq as a land occupied by the U.S. military and governed by American-installed lackeys.

Jordanian Prime Minister Adnan Badran last weekend became the first Arab government chief to visit Iraq since Saddam's fall. But the Iraqi government recently has squabbled with just about every Middle Eastern nation except Iran. It criticized Qatar for sending aid to American hurricane victims but not to Iraq, argued with Kuwait over their common border and blamed Syria for fueling the Iraqi insurgency.

The friction between the Baghdad administration and Arab governments has trickled down to ordinary Iraqis, who frequently echo their leaders in accusing Arabs from neighboring countries of suicide bombings and attacks on infrastructure. On a call-in show last month on al Iraqiya, the government-owned TV station, several viewers demanded that all non-Iraqi Arabs be expelled.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/krwashbureau/20050914/ts_krwashbureau/_usiraq_arabs