Walter Russell Mead believes Iraq is America’s “new natural strategic partner” in the region:

The US and Iraq have issues with one another, but an important reality about the new Middle East is that our strategic interests are aligned. We want a strong, independent Iraq that makes its presence felt in regional politics; as it happens, we are the only major power that has this strategic community of interest with Iraq.

Today’s Iraq is not strong, and it isn’t all that independent. The damage done by the last twenty years of U.S. policy makes it unlikely that any remotely representative Iraqi government would have much interest in aligning Iraq with the U.S. If this description of shared U.S.-Iraqi interests was true at one time, the war and occupation over the last nine years have made it more or less irrelevant. If the U.S. wanted Iraq to be strong and independent, it would not have spent the last twenty years trying to weaken and defeat it, and it would not have created the conditions that allow Iran to have greater influence inside Iraq. The Arab League summit is coming at a particularly awkward moment for Maliki, as the Iraqi government does not share the rest of the League’s desire for Assad’s overthrow, which highlights the continuing differences between Iraq and other Arab states that have been reinforced during the last decade.