November 29, 2006
In Amman Enemies, and Allies, Await Bush
By HASSAN M. FATTAH

AMMAN, Jordan, Nov. 28 — The ink on banners condemning American hegemony was still wet Tuesday as the details of a possible march were being worked out. DVDs of a British movie depicting the assassination of President Bush sold briskly in downtown Amman, while police cordoned off streets in preparation for a security nightmare.

When President Bush arrives here Wednesday to meet with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq, there will be no shortage of people seeking to make him feel unwelcome with a decidedly blunt message.

“We want to stress that America’s battle for the hearts and minds of Arabs has failed,” said Zaki Bani Rsheid, director general of the Islamic Action Front, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood here. “We are raising banners all over Jordan condemning Bush’s visit. It should be self-explanatory why.”

But as many here and throughout the Arab world prepared for Mr. Bush in the halls of power and on the streets of Amman, Iran was foremost on a lot of minds.

“I am here to make sure the mistakes of the past are not repeated,” said Sheik Dhari al-Jirba, of the Iraqi Shummar tribe, who sat in his hotel suite Tuesday pondering what strategy Mr. Bush would present to Mr. Maliki to pursue stability in Iraq.

“We keep hearing they want to bring Iran in, but Iran will come with conditions,” he said. “We don’t want Iran’s conditions to be met at the cost of Iraq and its Sunni neighbors. That is our great fear.”

Mr. Jirba said he planned to meet with Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador to Iraq, and hoped he would have an audience with the president himself. His first demand, he said, would be to say “no” to Iran.

A draft report by an American bipartisan commission studying new strategies for Iraq has urged that the United States open direct talks with Iran and Syria, according to American officials who have seen all or part of the document.

On Monday, the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, said at a meeting in Iran that his country needed Iran’s help to bring about peace.

Mr. Bush, who will be accompanied by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, is expected to try to enlist Arab leaders to help rein in the violence in Iraq by putting pressure on Sunni insurgents.

The United States wants moderate Arab governments like those of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan to help drive a wedge between Mr. Maliki and Moktada al Sadr, the anti-American Shiite cleric whose Mahdi Army has been behind many of the Shiite reprisal attacks in Iraq, senior administration official have said.

But that would require getting those governments to coax moderate Sunni Iraqis to support Mr. Maliki, a Shiite, boosting his ability to take on Mr. Sadr’s Shiite militias. The bipartisan commission would also open a line with Iran and Syria to help secure stability in Iraq.

Yet for many, a resurgent Iran, with or without a nuclear bomb, is a central concern. An opening with Iran, many analysts said, would amount to a loss of face for the Arabs and a striking boost for Iran.

“The one thing scarier to these guys than a powerful Iran is an American deal with Iran,” said Joost Hiltermann, Middle East project director at the International Crisis Group. “That would ratify Iran’s dominant position in the Persian Gulf. Iran wants to underscore it is the pre-eminent power in the region, and the U.S. would hand them that.”

Despite growing anti-Americanism, Arab governments have been eager to maintain an American presence in the region, fearing Iran would step in where the United States retreated. But a shift on Iran and Syria has caught many by surprise, as the Bush administration goes from “calling them the axis of evil, to considering them as an important element,” Emad Gad, a researcher at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo, said last week.

“The security and stability of the Persian Gulf cannot endure a shaken U.S. image,” Mr. Gad said. “When the big bodyguard leaves, they will have to succumb to the little bodyguard, and Iran has military power and has Shiites who could cause problems.”

In the Amman suburb of Ruseifa, Abu Mutasim, who described himself as a jihadi and would give only his nickname for fear of arrest, greeted a possible American opening with Iran with optimism. “Iran is the source of all the problems in the Middle East, and now they want to create problems here,” he said. “But including them would only be in the interest of the jihadis, because Iraq’s Sunnis would quickly shift to Al Qaeda. This would ultimately be in our interests, not against it.”

Suha Maayeh contributed reporting from Amman, Nada Bakri from Beirut and Mona el-Naggar from Cairo.