Mideast Leaders Visit US, Seek Support and Understanding
US influence on a rapidly changing Middle East is questionable. Nevertheless, several politicians from the region visited Washington this week in hopes of attracting support for their causes, showing that regional figures still care about US opinion and find embarking on such charm offensives worthwhile. Barbara Slavin reports.
The United States may be seen by some as a declining global power. But that hasn’t stopped several Middle Eastern politicians from visiting Washington this week in hopes of attracting US support — or at least neutrality — for their causes.
The visitors included Islamist politicians from Egypt and Tunisia who are at the cusp of taking power in in the wake of the Arab Spring. Also in Washington this week: the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq, Massoud Barzani.
On Thursday [April 5, 2012], Barzani gave a bristling speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an influential think tank that is usually supportive of Israel and that has cultivated close ties with Iraqi Kurds.
He threatened to call for a referendum among Iraqi Kurds about their relationship with the Iraqi state if the Baghdad government does not pay the KRG for the services of foreign oil companies operating in the Kurdish region.
