Ahmadinejad pokes Uncle Sam in eye with Iraq love-fest

Standing beneath portraits of Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim (upper L) and Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani (upper R), Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (L) speaks during a joint press conference alongside powerful Shia leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim (R) at the latter's residence in Baghdad on Sunday. Photo: AFP

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad poked his finger in the eye of Uncle Sam on his visit to Iraq on Sunday, displaying his country's regional influence in the face of 158,000 US soldiers in Iraq.
Top officials from the US-supported Iraqi government welcomed Ahmadinejad with hugs and kisses on a trip that opens a new phase between former enemies which fought a bitter war in the 1980s.
The televised love-fest was enough to give supporters of US President George W Bush's a seizure.
In 2002, Bush famously described Iraq -- then under Saddam Hussein -- Iran and North Korea as the Axis of Evil. One year later, US-led forces stormed Iraq and toppled Saddam.
Nearly five years, billions of dollars and 3,972 US dead later, American soldiers are holed up in fortified bases while the Islamic republic's leader is welcomed with flowers in Baghdad.
Ahmadinejad talked about regional stability upon arrival. He acknowledged Iraqis were going through "tough" times, but he was certain the Iraqi people would "overcome the situation."
After a red-carpet welcome at President Jalal Talabani's Baghdad residence, Ahmadinejad traveled to the heart of the US presence in Iraq -- the Green Zone citadel -- for talks with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
US officials went to great lengths to distance themselves from the visit, emphasising that Ahmadinejad was an Iraqi guest, and that the US military was not involved in any way.
Washington broke off diplomatic ties with Tehran in 1980 after Iranian students stormed the US embassy in Tehran and held the staff hostage.
At Maliki's office, Ahmadinejad took a verbal swipe at Bush, who on Saturday accused him of "exporting terror" and urged Tehran to "quit sending in sophisticated equipment that's killing our citizens."
Ahmadinejad's response: "Bush cannot solve US problems in the region by accusing others. Gone is the era of accusations. The Iraqi nation does not want the US."
Joost Hiltermann, a Middle East analyst with the International Crisis Group, said the Iranians were profiting from the US presence in Iraq.
"The Iranians were very happy that the regime of Saddam Hussein was removed," said Hiltermann, interviewed by telephone from Ankara. "They were just not happy that it was done by the Americans."
Yet for all the rhetoric, if the US forces went home, Iran would have to fill the security void. "For all practical purposes they want the Americans to stay, they just don't want them to succeed," Hiltermann said.
Washington has consistently underestimated Iran's importance to Iraq, said Juan Cole, a Middle East expert at the University of Michigan in the United States.
And under Saddam's rule many politicians prominent today -- including Talabani, Maliki, and Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the influential Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) party -- were exiled in Iran.
As for Iranian-supplied weapons, "how do we make a distinction between black market weapons and those supplied by a deliberate government policy?" Cole asked.
He noted that most of the violence was the work of Sunni extremists.
Brigadier General Kevin Bergner, a spokesman for the US-led forces in Iraq, agreed. "al-Qaeda in Iraq continues to be the main threat overall to the security situation in Iran," he said.
Cole instead sees US complaints against Iraq as part of a game of influence over the leading Iraqi players. "I see the whole thing as a jealous girlfriend story," he said.
The Iraqis know that the US presence is "here today, gone tomorrow," Hiltermann said, while their relationship with Iran has been "forged by history and geography, and will be forever".