ARAB AFFAIRS - Dec 8 - Arab States Seize On Call For Peace Drive.

Arab officials seize on the Iraq Study Group recommendations to highlight the need for greater US commitment to a revived peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. But there was also concern in some Arab states that any early scale-back of the American troop presence in Iraq could lead to an escalation in sectarian conflict that might spill over into neighbouring states. The report said: The US cannot achieve its goals in the Middle East unless it deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict and regional instability. There must be a renewed and sustained commitment by the US to a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace on all fronts". It also recommended that the US engage constructively with Syria and Iran to influence their behaviour in Iraq. Syria welcomed the recommendation, saying it was pleased that the report tied the situation in the Iraq with the rest of the region. Iran's FM Manouchehr Mottaki, said Iran would be "in the position of [providing] help" if Washington found "a good end for the Iraq crisis". But he reiterated Tehran's position that US troops should leave. While some in Tehran fear the dangers for Iran of growing violence in Iraq, others say it has no pressing reason to ease the US plight. Ali Larijani, the top security official, said on Dec 7 that the US was at a "strategic dead-end" in Iraq and the wider Middle East. One official recently told the FT that Iran could "live with" any likely scenario in Iraq, "including riots, federalism, popular government or disintegration". "A mess in Iraq means Iran would not be next [to be invaded by the US], while security and democracy in Iraq would mean Iran's friends were in power, whether in a unified Iraq or a federal one", he added. "Iran is now strong in the region, and has won the game in Iraq". Any signs of Iranian triumphalism are likely to add to fears within Arab states, of spreading Iranian and radical influence in the region. Some commentators sniffed a sense of US defeatism in the Baker-Hamilton report, which said the conditions in Iraq were "grave and deteriorating" and recommended that by the first quarter of 2008 all US combat brigades should be out of the country, if training of Iraqi forces were stepped up. Abdel Monem Said, the director of Al Ahram centre for political and strategic studies, said this idea could be seized on by militant Islamists in the region and likened the situation to that prior to the US withdrawal from Vietnam in the early 1970s. He also questioned what incentives the US would be able to use to draw the Iranians and Syrians into constructive dialogue. "We are coming back to 1974 once more, when the US was internationally demoralised and got out of south- east Asia and for the next seven to eight years we got a communist sweep into Vietnam, into Laos, into Cambodia", he said. Lebanese officials welcomed calls for greater US efforts to pursue peace between Israel and the Arabs. But one senior Beirut official said that Lebanon should not become a pawn in negotiations with neighbouring Syria and should not "be made the reward for Syria's good behaviour". There was little immediate prospect in any case of an advance on the wider Arab- Israeli conflict. Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, rejected links between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iraq and ruled out talks with Syria. Some Iraqis themselves doubted that changes in US policy could make much difference. "The situation is a hurricane: no one has the power to calm it, not Americans and not Iraqis", said Hussein, a Shi'ite teacher in Baghdad.