Obama, al-Maliki charting next steps for US, Iraq

Nearly 4,500 American soldiers lost and 32,000 wounded. A trillion dollars of borrowed money to remove Saddam Hussein and create an Iraq that would not only be safe from possessing weapons of mass destruction but also friendly toward the United States. These are the United States' heavy sacrifices in blood and treasure. One can be forgiven for expecting some Iraqi support for U.S. foreign policy aims in the region.
On Monday, the Iranian-backed prime minister of Iraq, Nuri al-Maliki, met with President Barack Obama at the White House to express his thanks for liberating Iraq from Hussein and discuss next steps. The frosty news conference afterward told us that all was not well. Tense, lacking in warmth and smiles and with public disagreement about Iraq's neighbor, Syria, the appearance did not reflect a productive meeting.
As the United States formally ends the almost nine-year war and nears the end of its troop withdrawal, there is still much at stake -- and it's not the relatively tiny Iraqi nation of 30 million people, but U.S. influence and foreign policy objectives in the region.


The White House said Obama">Obama and al-Maliki would also discuss cooperation on energy, trade and education.


Obama">Obama and al-Maliki will also hold a joint news conference at the White House and then lay wreaths at Arlington National Cemetery, where some of the nearly 4,500 Americans killed in the Iraq war are buried.


Looming over the talks are concerns among U.S. officials over how Iraq's relationship with Iran will develop with a significantly smaller U.S. presence in the region.


Al-Maliki has insisted that Iraq will chart its future according to its own national interests, not the dictates of Iran or any other country. But some U.S. officials have suggested that Iranian influence in Iraq would inevitably grow once American troops depart.


Both countries have Shiite majorities and are dominated by Shiite political groups. Many Iraqi politicians spent time in exile in Iran during Saddam's repressive regime, and one of al-Maliki's main allies _ anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr _ is believed to spend most of his time in Iran.


Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said how Baghdad chooses to orient itself will significantly influence the future of Iraq's relationship with the U.S.


"A lot of this really comes down to, what kind of role is Iraq going to play in regional security?" Alterman said. "Is it going to be a place where bad people come and go, or is it going to play a role in calming down a region that needs some calming down?"


The first hints as to how Iraq will assert itself in the region may come from how it handles the troubles in Syria"Syria, where a bloody government crackdown on protesters has killed more than 4,000 people, according to the United Nations.


The Obama"Obama administration has called for Syria"Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down. But Iraq has been much more circumspect, with al-Maliki warning of civil war if Assad falls and abstaining from Arab League votes suspending Syria"Syria's membership and imposing sanctions. Those positions align Iraq more closely with Iran, a key Syria"Syrian ally.


The U.S. has warned Iraq's neighbors that even though American troops are leaving, the U.S. will maintain a significant presence there. About 16,000 people are working at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, making it America's largest mission in the world.