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Updated Sunday, September 5, 2010 8:57 pm TWN, By Bernd Debusmann, Reuters

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The US war in Iraq is over. Who won?

“Iran has said many times ... that it will fill the vacuum after the U.S. withdraws. The country has become the target of regional ambitions and interference in its affairs.”

Pull-Out Too Early?

Which raises the question whether the U.S. has pulled out too early. Like many of America's foreign policy moves, the withdrawal by August 31 was a function of domestic politics rather than conditions on the ground. “This was my pledge to the American people as a candidate for this office,” Obama said in his speech. “That is what we have done, we have removed nearly 100,000 U.S. troops from Iraq.” Promise fulfilled.

For Obama, how to deal with Iran's influence in Iraq and elsewhere in the region is a work in progress. The issues range from the Tehran government's nuclear programme to Iran's backing of Hamas, the Palestinian group that runs Gaza, and Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shi'ite organization Israel tried (and failed) to wipe out in its 2006 invasion of Lebanon. The U.S. considers both groups terrorist organizations.

Early in his tenure, with his prestige riding much higher at home and in the Muslim world than it is now, Obama might have had a chance to tackle Iran the way Richard Nixon dealt with China and strike a grand bargain, putting all the differences between the two countries on the table and resolve them as a package. That possibility is probably gone.

Neither Iran nor its Hamas allies in Gaza were on the agenda this week as Obama convened the first direct talks on making peace between Israel and the Palestinians in 20 months. But the ghosts of both were hanging over the meetings which brought together Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, King Abdullah II of Jordan and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

On the eve of the talks, the ninth revival of a “peace process” that has dragged on for decades, Hamas demonstrated its potential to undermine negotiations it opposes by killing four Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank and vowed that more attacks would follow. There's no reason to doubt they'll try.

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