A new mediator for Tehran & Washington: Iraq!

So now, the ever-mercurial Ali Dabbagh, spokesman for Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki, says he’s been urging Barack Obama to initiate a serious, sustained dialogue with Iran.
Reuters reports that Dabbagh,

    also called for dialogue to improve relations between Iran and Arab countries. “The time has come for a new, serious, and calm policy with an open-minded vision,” Dabbagh said.

(HT: Bill the spouse).
So now the Iraqi government, joint foster-child of Washington and Tehran, wants “mommy” and “daddy” to start talking nicely with each other. Good for Maliki.
It’s important that he takes– and hopefully sticks to– this position. Remember back when the US was trying to gin up anti-Iranian feeling in the US on the grounds that Iran was undertaking various heinous efforts to attack and undermine the Baghdad government? Now the foster-child is putting his own voice directly into the discussion.
Reuters adds this:

    Without specifying whether he was addressing Iran or the United States, Dabbagh called for respect for international law, alternatives to military solutions to conflict, and for regional answers to regional problems.
    “Solutions (must not be) forced from outside,” he said.

By the way, I don’t speak Farsi but there are some reports (e.g. here) that “Obama” can be understood by Farsi speakers as meaning “he is with us.” That, along with the president-elect’s other two names, could connect powerfully with the millennialism that seems to rumble around in the hearts of many of Iran’s theocrats. Can any readers here shed more light on the linguistic, sociological, or political aspects of this question?

4 thoughts on “A new mediator for Tehran & Washington: Iraq!”

  1. The point about Obama in farsi is quite right. three words: Uu baa maa – he with us. You have to omit the verb, otherwise it would be ‘Obamast’.

  3. So now, the ever-mercurial Ali Dabbagh, spokesman for Iraqi PM Nuri al-Maliki, says he’s been urging Barack Obama to initiate a serious, sustained dialogue with Iran.
    There is very obvious facts these who rule Iraq are Iranians not Iraqi brought by US,
    So all of you talking some things far from every Iraqi knew and you trying to tell your fake store here and there these Iraq now to initiate a serious, sustained dialogue with Iran?
    So why they don’t go and work for Iraq and Iraqis instead working for Iran?
    Iraqis have no power no security no water no service no roads not transports just as your media telling susses in Iraq what success is in Iraq?
    Is Iran more important that Iraqi and Iraqi life’s?
    Imagine you democratic government “if you like to tell reader as Iraqi democratic elected government” working for country out side your country and leaving you living in misery what you think about this sort of government?
    Btw, its called government that have control for 2.8×2.5 Km and can move between normal Iraqi after five year that you media telling Iraqi goverement check theis government then:

    Five years after the invasion of Iraq, the US and the Iraqi governments claim that the country is becoming a less dangerous place, but the measures taken to protect Mr Maliki told a different story. Gun-waving soldiers first cleared all traffic from the streets. Then four black armoured cars, each with three machine-gunners on the roof, raced out of the Green Zone through a heavily fortified exit, followed by sand-coloured American Humvees and more armoured cars. Finally, in the middle of the speeding convoy, we saw six identical bullet-proof vehicles with black windows, one of which must have been carrying Mr Maliki.

  4. Looks the US & Iran Mullah had long love relations, so is it today oil prices sink down so fast what we all confist by thereport telling is Production and demand formilla now looks no stand for hat theory at all as oil dropping from near USD170.0/B to almost now USD45.0/B.
    So what going on is time comes for a new regime change here?

    What led to the calamitous drop in Iran’s oil revenues in January 1977? Politics, religion, culture, and economics have been identified as factors contributing to the collapse of Iran’s monarchy in 1979. But until now scholars have been unable to access documents that could shed light on the inner workings of the relationship between senior US officials and the Shah of Iran, whom Henry Kissinger lauded as “that rarest of leaders, an unconditional ally, and one whose understanding of the world enhanced our own.”1 The declassification of the papers of Brent Scowcroft, who worked in the Nixon and Ford Administrations, marks a significant milestone in our understanding of the origins of the Iranian Revolution. They reveal that in 1976 the US and Saudi Arabia colluded to force down oil prices, inadvertently triggering a financial crisis that destabilized Iran’s economy and weakened the Shah’s hold on power.

    Showdown at Doha

Comments are closed.