Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki concluded a three-day visit to Iran after meeting Monday with Ayatollah Ali Khameni, who warned that the continued presence of U.S. troops was "the main obstacle on the way to progress and prosperity in Iraq."
The session with Khameni, Iran's top religious and political authority, served to further highlight the delicate position of the Iraqi government -- caught between the U.S. and Iran, enemies seeking to pull Iraq out of the other's sphere of influence.
U.S. officials have long accused Shiite Muslim-dominated Iran of playing a negative role in the affairs of its neighbor to the west, which has had a Shiite-run government of its own since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. Some members of a Shiite militia, the Mahdi Army, which recently fought U.S. and Iraqi troops in Baghdad and Basra, have openly admitted to receiving Iranian weapons.
Khameni said Iraq's "most important problem" isn't the still-active Sunni insurgency or the reigning in of Shiite Muslim militias, but rather the continued presence of "occupying troops."
Khameni and other Iranian politicians have repeatedly urged Maliki's government not to sign a status of forces agreement, or SOFA, being negotiated with the U.S. The agreement would provide a legal framework for the continued presence of U.S. troops in Iraq after the current U.N. mandate expires at the end of this year.
Iran accuses America of seeking to formalize its permanent domination of Iraq through the SOFA pact. America charges that Iran is actively working to destabilize Iraq by supplying weapons to Shiite militias. Maliki's government is caught in the middle.
"Iran is accusing America, and America is accusing Iran," said Mahmoud Othman, a veteran Kurdish politician in Iraq. "Nobody would want to be in Maliki's shoes right now."
The Iraqi and Iranian ministers of defense signed a memorandum of understanding during Maliki's visit to boost defense cooperation. The seeming incompatibility of Iraq simultaneously signing defense pacts with both Iran and the U.S. underscores Baghdad's difficult position. The Iraqi daily newspaper Al Mada, in a front-page editorial published Monday, said Maliki is being "pulled in opposite directions ... the challenge for Iraqis is to handle two friends who are enemies."
