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Iranian president visits Baghdad

"He has a thin line to walk."

John Alterman, Center for Strategic International Studies

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived yesterday in Baghdad for the first-ever trip by an Iranian president to Iraq, walking a red carpet past Iraqi troops in dress uniform to meet the president of what was once Iran's bitter enemy.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani greeted Ahmadinejad at his car and the two kissed four times in the traditional fashion. A military honor guard saluted the two and a band played the two countries' national anthems as they walked slowly down the red carpet at Talabani's residency.

The visit gives Ahmadinejad a chance to highlight the relationship his nation has with post-Saddam Hussein Iraq -- both countries are led by Shiite Muslims -- while also serving as an act of defiance toward the US, which accuses Tehran of training and supplying weapons to Shiite extremists.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said that Ahmadinejad plans to leave early today.

Ahmadinejad is scheduled to meet not only with Talabani but also Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, both of whom have made official visits to Iran since taking office. Talabani's headquarters are located just across the Tigris River from the mammoth new US embassy in the fortified Green Zone, an area that has been repeatedly hit by mortar attacks, with the US blaming Shiite militants.

The US has said it would have no involvement in Ahmadinejad's visit.

Ahmadinejad arrived in Iraq a day after Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, came to Baghdad on an unannounced visit with commanders and Iraqi officials.

Ahmadinejad sought to reassure Iraqis ahead of the trip that Iran is not fueling violence in Iraq and wanted to promote peace.

"This visit will be benefiting for all sides. Anybody who seeks peace and stability in the region will benefit from this trip," Ahmadinejad said before departing from Tehran yesterday, according to the Iranian state-run news agency, IRNA.

With the trip, Ahmadinejad also may be trying to bolster his support back home ahead of parliamentary elections later this month. They are seen as referendum on the Iranian president, who has come under criticism from all sides in his country for spending too much time on anti-Western rhetoric and not enough on economic problems plaguing the country.

Jon Alterman, head of the Middle East program at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the visit sends a "clear message to Iraqis that the Iranian influence in the country is significant and enduring."

But at the same time, "he doesn't want to threaten the Iraqis. He doesn't want to threaten Gulf states who fear that Iraq will be an Iranian satellite. He has a thin line to walk," Alterman said.

US President George W. Bush denied that the visit undermined US efforts to isolate Tehran but had some advice for what al-Maliki should say to the Iranian leader.

"He's a neighbor. And the message needs to be, quit sending in sophisticated equipment that's killing our citizens," Bush said at his ranch in Crawford, Texas.
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