From a DEBKAfile Exclusive: February 12, 2006, 9:30 PM (GMT+02:00) . . .
Our sources in Baghdad report Hamas leaders are making a point of being received and recognized by an Arab government backed to the hilt and sustained by the US government and army.
Saudi Arabia and Iran are urging Jaafari to invite Hamas leaders as a show of independence.
DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources note: An invitation from the democratically-elected government in Baghdad to a democratically-elected Palestinian (terrorist) party would place the Washington in a cleft stick, after having initiated both elections. Cooperation between the only two elected Arab regimes would be hard to challenge. On the other hand, since Hamas is listed as a terrorist group in the US and Europe, such cooperation would show the Bush administration as having placed democratic reform in the Middle East ahead of the global war on terror and at its expense.
Israel’s efforts to internationally isolate a Hamas government would not have much chance if Baghdad invited the terror group’s leaders in the wake of a lengthening list of capitals started by Moscow, Ankara, Cairo, Riyadh, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.
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