U.S. eyes Iranian president's visit to Iraq

By Sue Pleming - Analysys

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - While President George W. Bush's trips to Iraq have been brief and surrounded by secrecy, a visit by Iran's president this weekend is being heralded with much fanfare, raising U.S. concerns it will erode American influence in the region.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit, at the invitation of the Iraqi government, will be the first by an Iranian president to Baghdad since 1979.

Bush used his own trip to the region last month to cajole moderate Arab allies to join a U.S. drive to isolate Iran because of its nuclear program and what Washington sees as stoking violence in Iraq.

"President Ahmadinejad's visit is aimed at stealing America's thunder ... the Iranians are masters of propaganda," said Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank.

"It is his (Ahmadinejad's) moment of triumph. It is his 'Mission Accomplished' moment," Rubin said, referring to a visit by Bush to a U.S. aircraft carrier in May 2003, two months after the invasion of Iraq, in which he addressed troops under a banner saying "Mission Accomplished."

The significance of Ahmadinejad's trip was further boosted on Friday when an Iranian Foreign Ministry official said that Tehran had been discussing a $1 billion loan to Iraq for projects to be handled by Iranian firms, which could be a big fillip for the shattered Iraqi economy.

Bush has never spent the night in Iraq and like his two previous visits, his most recent trip in September 2007, was kept secret until after his arrival.

The United States insists it does not view Ahmadinejad's two-day trip, which begins on Sunday, as a provocative gesture, but has strongly urged Iraq, which fought an eight-year war with Iran in the 1980s, to use the visit to tell Tehran it must change its behavior.

"We very much would like to see Iran play a positive role in Iraq and obviously, there have been many questions raised by us and the Iraqis about whether their rhetoric of wanting to be good neighbors has actually been matched by their actions," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.

A senior Bush administration official said Ahmadinejad had always been an "extremely worrisome figure" and there were concerns he could cozy up too much to Iraq's government.

'ILLICIT MEDDLING'

"There is still significant evidence of Iran's illicit meddling in Iraq ... This has to stop," said the official, who spoke on condition he was not identified.

"But it is important to remember that this is a sovereign Iraqi decision (to invite Ahmadinejad) and we have faith that the Iraqis will be able to deal with his visit."

Iran expert Karim Sadjadpour said while Bush's tour was aimed at uniting Arab countries against Iran, Ahmadinejad wanted to show through his high-profile trip to Baghdad that Tehran was a major player and could not be sidelined.

"The U.S. may have hard power in Iraq -- they may have tanks and tens of thousands of soldiers and artillery -- but Iran has soft power and has a lot of political and cultural influence," said Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank.