What is value of regional conference on Iraq

Reuel Marc Gerecht:

COULD A REGIONAL conference, drawing in all of Iraq's neighbors, help save us and the Iraqis from a massive civil war in Mesopotamia? It is difficult to think what the United States might offer at the negotiating table that would cause Iraq's neighbors to stop seeing it in their interest to foment trouble there. Nevertheless, the idea of a regional conference has gained currency in Washington, notably inside the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group.

The advocates, like former ambassador and ISG adviser James Dobbins of the Rand Institute, argue that even if such a conference failed to make any difference, it couldn't make the Iraq imbroglio any worse. For other participants, the desirability of regional talk is an article of faith. Former U.S. ambassador to Syria Edward Djerejian, who runs the Baker Institute in Houston and will likely be the primary drafter of the ISG's report, has long advocated closer contact between Washington and Damascus. Secretary of Defense designate Robert Gates in 2004 co-chaired a Council on Foreign Relations study of Iran with President Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, which concluded that a sustained conversation with the mullahs was long overdue. And former secretary of state James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton have at times expressed similar views. With the ISG report imminent, it is worth asking, Are discussions with Iraq's neighbors a good idea? Could a regional conference possibly help? Would we be worse off for trying?

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... let us consider the question at the heart of any negotiation: What can be traded and bargained? What in the world can the United States give the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Alawite mafia of Bashar Assad in Damascus that they do not have already? Or to put it in the vernacular of the region: Can the Americans actually hurt me, and will they refrain from doing so? What have Damascus and Tehran lost by the turmoil in Iraq? If the violence in Iraq diminished, would they lose or gain?

For realists, the answers to all of these questions aren't good. When you're weak--when you're seen to be weak and see yourself as weak--you don't have much to offer.

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There is much more. What it comes down to is that the Iranians probably like the current situation in Iraq better than they like any change that might come about as a result of negotiations. The same is probably the case for the Syrians, unless they though they could get the US to compel Israel to give back the Golon Heights. Of course Syria is not willing to make the concessions it would take to achieve that result and there is nothing really in Iraq that will help them achieve it. Syria also wants a pass on the Hariri murder rap. The chances of that are remote.