Word: baghdad
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...withdrawing support from the new government in order to squeeze concessions from the Shi'ites, the Shi'ites in turn might look to draw Tehran into a more active role in the country. But if the U.S. could find agreement with Iran over the principles of power sharing in Baghdad, Tehran's help in delivering the Shi'ites could prove decisive. At minimum, Iran's help could be indispensable in restraining the Shi'ites in the face of provocative sectarian attacks by al-Qaeda in Iraq...
...Bush administration had, in fact, some time ago authorized its Baghdad ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, to seek talks with Iran about the situation in Iraq...
...Iraqi's head spin. "Zal had definitively been promised that if he agreed to go to Kabul, he would be given a more relaxed and family-friendly assignment thereafter," says Benard. But last June, with the U.S. struggling to contain the insurgency in Iraq, President Bush sent Khalilzad to Baghdad. It made sense: Khalilzad was an early proponent of regime change and had worked with Iraqi exiles in the run-up to the U.S. invasion. "He was already on first-name terms with many of the key players," says a senior diplomat at a European embassy in Baghdad. "There...
There's little doubt that the bombing has galvanized Khalilzad's diplomatic efforts, giving him in his meetings with Iraqi leaders an urgent, compelling talking point: the prospect of civil war. But a day spent with the ambassador as he shuttles across Baghdad reveals just how hard it will be for him to forge compromise. At his meeting with al-Hakim, the SCIRI leader's aides nod when Khalilzad says the political deadlock is creating a vacuum that encourages sectarian impulses. But al-Hakim wants to talk instead about the discovery last week of a bus containing the corpses...
...been a trying day, and Khalilzad looks exhausted. He may be the most homesick man in U.S. government, having spent the past five years away from Benard and their two sons, now 22 and 14. (It doesn't help that he says he may spend an upcoming break from Baghdad in Afghanistan.) He talks every day to Benard, who describes their communications as "very frustrating--satellite phones and terrible connections and as I have been assured, many fellow listeners in various countries' security agencies." Because of safety concerns, Khalilzad is unable to see much of the country he is trying...