Arab Diplomat Resigns After Iraq Mission

TO GO WITH BC-ME-GEN--Iraq-Defeated Diplomat By OMAR SINAN Moroccan Diplomat Mokhtar Lamani reads the morning newspapers before an interview with the Associated Press in Cairo, Egypt, Sunday, Feb. 4, 2007. Lamani, who was sent last year to Iraq as the Arab world's point man in an intiative trying to coax its Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders into peace, now resigned, disillusioned and nearly drained of hope. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil) (Amr Nabil - AP)

Lamani, who worked previously for the United Nations in Afghanistan and Africa, met repeatedly with all of Iraq's factions.

He conferred with senior Shiite leaders, such as Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim and Muqtada al-Sadr, and went to the holy city of Najaf for talks with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite cleric. He went to the northern city of Irbil to talk with Kurdish leaders.

He wanted to go to Anbar province, the Sunni Arab heartland and a main stronghold of the insurgency. But he was told it was too dangerous, so Sunni political and religious leaders came to Baghdad for meetings.

Lamani also met with members of Saddam's ousted Baath Party and even representatives of some Sunni insurgents, hoping to persuade them to compromise.

But the attempts to put together a conference "were all nonsense," because Iraq lacks the key requisite for reconciliation _ trust, Lamani told AP.

He said that during his meetings with Iraqi officials, it was painful to "hear what each Iraqi faction wants to take from Iraq. I never heard them talk about what they have to give Iraq."

In his Jan. 22 resignation letter, a copy of which he gave to AP, Lamani said of the Iraqi leaders: "My only problem was their own relations with each other, their strong feeling that each is a victim of the other."

Lamani said he ultimately blames Washington for Iraq's deterioration. "Its ways of dealing with the Iraqi problems, including the Iranian intervention, are not right. ... They need to change their policy in an urgent way," he said.

He has backed the Iraq Study Group's report in December that recommended Washington engage Iran as part of a regional approach to ending Iraq's violence. The White House rejected that approach, accusing Iran of supporting Shiite extremists in Iraq.

Lamani also faults the 22 nations of the Arab League, saying they did not give Iraq "the necessary priority or seriousness." Arab governments were so detached from Iraq that it was "as if it were on the moon," he said.

Now, after a year of deepening sectarian violence in Iraq, mainly Sunni Muslim nations like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia are increasingly worried over the killing of Sunni Arabs by Shiite militias and over the influence of their regional rival, mainly Shiite Iran.

Lamani said he hopes his resignation will be a wake-up call for Arab governments.

If Iraq falls into outright civil war, "it will burn down everything, and not only in Iraq," he said. "God alone knows how far it will go."