In Baghdad's scars, a warning to Arab leaders

The eerie quiet enveloping the road from the airport to the Saddam Hussein-era palace where Arab leaders will meet this week cannot conceal Baghdad's grim realities. Behind the freshly planted palm trees and lawns are concrete walls closing off nearby neighborhoods and troops in full combat gear deployed to prevent any attacks.     

For Arab leaders who seek military intervention in Syria, the Iraqi capital provides a cautionary tale, with violence and sectarian hatreds persisting nearly a decade after the U.S. invasion.     

Gulf Arab nations, particularly Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have been pushing behind the scenes for more assertive action to end the year-old conflict in Syria. Privately, they see little benefit in the Arab League's efforts to reach a peaceful settlement and prefer instead to see a small core of nations pooling together to act on their own.     

Among the options they are considering are arming the rebels and creating a safe haven for the opposition alongside the Turkish-Syrian border to serve as a humanitarian sphere or staging ground for anti-regime forces.     

The summit, gathering the members of the 22-nation Arab League, is likely to take a less dramatic step, issuing a condemnation of civilian deaths in Syria's crackdown on the uprising and a call for President Bashar Assad to stop all violence and allow street protests.     

But Gulf nations apparently believe Assad won't abide by those demands and that, if he defies the League, they will have diplomatic cover to take stronger action. Their bullish approach has its roots in their hopes that by forcing Assad's fall they can pull Sunni-majority Syria out of its alliance with Iran and break the belt of Tehran's influence that stretches through Iraq and Syria to the Mediterranean. Like Iraq, Syria has its own dangerous sectarian divide, between the majority Sunnis who largely back the opposition, and the Alawite minority, a Shiite offshoot that dominates power.     

A Sunni-ruled Syria would give the U.S.-allied Gulf Arabs a significant victory in their long-running power struggle with non-Arab, mainly Shiite Iran.     

But that prospect worries Iraq, with its sectarian divides between a Shiite majority that now holds power and a Sunni minority that resents its sidelining.     

"A Sunni regime in Damascus will encourage Iraq's Sunni provinces to push for autonomy and maybe even secession," warned Iraqi political analyst Hassan Kamil. "That will in turn add more problems for Iraqi Shiites and draw more Iranian and Saudi interference in Iraq's affairs."     

Hosting an Arab summit that demands Assad stop violence places Iraq in a delicate position, because of the Baghdad government's close ties to Iran. The preliminary meetings began Tuesday, and the leaders arrive for their summit Thursday.     

On the other hand, hosting the summit gives its guests an opportunity to see first hand what foreign military intervention can do to a nation.     

The 14-mile (20-kilometer) stretch of road linking the airport to the city is about all the Arab leaders will see in Baghdad when they jet in for their one-day summit. It is where Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government spent a big chunk of the $500 million it has splashed on sprucing up the city for the occasion.     

AP