On Iraq SOFA Renegotiations

[bigtree]

from Spencer Ackerman: http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2010/03/03/sofa-renegotiations/


Wednesday March 3, 2010

Still chewing over Tom Ricks’ let’s-stay-in-Iraq proposal, I remembered that in July I asked Prime Minister Maliki if he thought the Status of Forces Agreement that stipulates a total U.S. withdrawal by 2011 ought to be renegotiated, and he gave a no-but answer. (That being: “If Iraqi forces required further training and further support, we shall examine this at that time based on the needs of Iraq.”) So that’s something Tom can point to when it comes to the most important political/diplomatic obstacle to a post-2011 military presence.


In an article published this week entitled, 'A mistaken war that needs more troops', Tom Ricks argues that the consideration of President Obama (or at least his advisers) to leave 'tens of thousands' of troops in Iraq for the foreseeable future "probably is the best course for him, and for Iraqi leaders, to pursue."

Ricks writes: http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/02/a_mistaken_war_that_needs_more.html

"Whether or not the elections bring the long-awaited political breakthrough that genuinely ends the fighting there, 2010 is likely to be a turning-point year in the war, akin to the summer of 2003 (when the United States realized that it faced an insurgency) and 2006 (when that insurgency morphed into a small but vicious civil war and American policy came to a dead end). For good or ill, this is likely the year we will begin to see the broad outlines of post-occupation Iraq. The early signs are not good, with the latest being the decision over the weekend of the leading Sunni party, the National Dialogue Front, to withdraw from the elections . . . The political situation is far less certain, and I think less stable, than most Americans believe . . ."


Of course, it’s election season in Iraq, and Juan Cole has a translation of an interview Maliki gave ahead of Monday’s parliamentary contest: (http://www.juancole.com/2010/03/al-maliki-in-bbc-interview-no-need-for.html)

Iraqi Defence minister said he wanted US troops to stay till 2020 . . .

Al-Maliki: That’s his view; but we think the Iraqi security infrastructure is effective even without US help; they said Basra operation (against militias in spring of 2008) would take us six months – we did it in nine days.

Al-Maliki: I think it’s unlikely he really said that; any such change would need a new security agreement that would need to be vote on by parliament.

The issue isn’t Maliki’s consistency. It’s the barometric significance of the fact that when it gets closer to the time when Iraqi politicians face even a modicum of accountability, they continue to rule out a continued occupation. That tells us what we need to know.


read post: http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2010/03/03/sofa-renegotiations/