Can the U.S. and Iraq Have a Long-Term Relationship?
Iraqi society and the broader Muslim world are debating a proposed long-term security arrangement between Iraq and the U.S. But will Tehran's allies smother it?
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The debate over immediate security conditions is taking a back seat in Iraq now as the debate over long-term fixes, particularly the U.S.-Iraq agreement, takes the lead.
The national scope of this debate goes beyond the talk of politicians –who are trying to use their position on the agreement for electoral campaigning– and people’s talk in the streets to Friday prayer sermons. Interestingly, the issue has also attracted curiously broad attention from Arab and regional leaders and media. Most notably, in his first speech following a crisis that brought Lebanon to the brink of a new civil war and on a day no less than the anniversary of his “victory” in the south, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah dedicated a significant portion of his speech to the U.S.-Iraq agreement. In Iran, hard-line cleric Ahmed Khatami also denounced the proposed treaty in an earlier Friday sermon, warning Baghdad’s government that signing the agreement would be a betrayal of the Muslim world and particularly of the Shia faith. This frenzy with which Iran and allies scramble to preempt the agreement has a downside — their speeches embarrassed their allies in Iraq, making them appear as mere puppets.
It’s neither strange nor ironic that the pro-Iran extremists have made such a fuss about an agreement whose terms are yet to be fully made public — rumors and exaggerations of half-truths are enough to make the public in a place like the Middle East feel uneasy about any given issue. It’s enough for an aide of Sadr to tell fanatic followers that the treaty would grant the U.S. control over 99% of Iraq’s riches to make them take to the streets to denounce the agreement. This cleric didn’t need to find facts to back his argument: the crowd is easy to convince, thanks to widespread ignorance; sentimental rhetoric is more attractive to them than facts, numbers, and science.
Like I wrote a moment ago, some politicians have already begun using their positions from this agreement for electoral campaigning. Former PM Ibrahim Jaafari emerged with a new political alliance with supposed backing from Iran and Ayatollah Sistani. He showed his true colors too early when he made his main theme that the agreement is bad and our neighbors don’t like it. By “neighbors” I can only think of Iran and Syria, as I don’t see a reason for any other neighbor to be upset with the agreement.
I personally don’t have a full text of the agreement’s draft but I’ve always been a proponent of establishing a strategic alliance with the U.S. For our government, I hope that accepting or rejecting it would be based on its impact on Iraq’s interests.
Will Iraqis accept the agreement? No one can tell at this point, and this is the difference between democracies and non-democracies. Had the question been posed in Iran or Syria, it would take one man’s word to offer an answer. I am pleased to see that our government is dealing pragmatically with the issue and is seeking the opinion of countries that have experience with long-term U.S. military presence. The government sent delegations to Germany, Japan, and South Korea to listen to what they, not the mullahs, have to say about it.
If not for the lack of information about this agreement, the clergy in Najaf wouldn’t have considered calling for a referendum on it. The ignorance of the public as to the content of the agreement makes it easy for a cleric to manipulate the outcome of such a referendum and still make it look as if it was the people who made the decision. All he needs to do is issue a fatwa that tells the simple, faithful citizen that his or her vote today could make the difference between hell and heaven. Such a disgusting exploitation of the trust of people who are just beginning to learn the alphabet of knowledge!
The political map when it comes to positions on the agreement looks something like this:
- For: Kurds, the Iraqi list of Ayad Allawi, and part of the Accord Front (Sunni)
- For, with reservations: the Islamic Party of VP Tariq Hashimi
- Undecided: SIIC of Abdul Aziz Hakim
- Against: Sadrists and Ibrahim Jaafari’s new group
As to PM Maliki and what’s left of the Da’wa Party (Jaafari took part of the party with him when he split), the man is being very careful here. He’s trying to make a choice between two sources of power, and it’s indeed a difficult one for a Shia Islamist. On the one hand he’s got the political achievements he made on his own as a statesman and his recent successes in terms of security and reconciliation; on the other there’s Shia unity and the blessings of the Najaf clergy.
The scale is very delicate and I think Maliki will wait for it to stop before he makes adjustments to his position. However, these adjustments are unlikely to move him far away from his current position and I see that ultimately the agreement will be signed, if with some modifications. Sorry, Tehran!
Mohammed Fadhil is PJM Baghdad editor. His own blog is Iraq the Model.
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18 Comments
1. Valerie:Mohammed,
The text of the agreement is crucial, and I hope it will be widely published. The U.S. does not offer security agreements that violate the sovereignty of their allies. The American people will not stand for that kind of nonsense.
We are not an empire. We do not want to be an empire. We do not want to run other people’s countries. We believe that the local people should run the local government.
Jun 4, 2008 - 5:49 am 2. Corey Wayne:The Iranians have made it pretty hard for the Iraqi’s not to sign the agreement. Especially when Iran has been killing Iraqi citizens and soldiers with the weapons, training, and money they have given shia gangs and special groups.
Iraqi’s as a whole do not like persians and from the military blogs I have been reading the Iraqi’s now see Iran as the main threat to their returning to a normal life. The American troops have the perception amongst Iraqi’s as the people they trust most in Iraq. Even more than their own government (which thankfully they are trusting more due to our troopers efforts).
Iran has done nothing to slow the flow of weapons and money to special groups and thugs.
Jun 4, 2008 - 6:27 am 3. locomotivebreath1901:The short answer is a resounding “YES”.
The long answer is a resounding “H3LL YES” - so long as Iraq embraces it’s forwarding thinking, cosmopolitan, pre saddam, national interest of a pro-western secular govt. that welcomes international alliance & trade.
Jun 4, 2008 - 7:03 am 4. John Samford:“the crowd is easy to convince, thanks to widespread ignorance; sentimental rhetoric is more attractive to them than facts, numbers, and science.”
Sounds just like the Democratic Party!
Jun 4, 2008 - 7:09 am 5. GW:The Iraqi’s have picked up on this democracy thingie much faster then I thought they would. Or at least the politicians have.
The Status of Forces agreement will settle the issue once and for all, or at least the next few election cycles, whichever comes first.
If Iraq rejects the SFA, the USA will be gone so fast your head will spin. That would be a good result for both sides of the issue here in the States.
I think a few months later, you would have an Iranian Armored Division visit Baghdad but that would be a different issue, one for the Iraqi’s to work out with Iran.
In another 5 to 10 years, the Iraqi military could be built up to the point where there would be no possibility of neighboors dropping by for a little rapine and pillage.
As I recall the defense minister’s estimates last year, he believed U.S. presence would be needed for internal security through 2012 - which would mean a large foot at or a little below pre-surge levels. He then called for U.S. presence for at least a decade beyond that for external security - which could be a substantially smaller combined arms force of a division plus significant air assets, such as we have kept in S. Korea for half a decade. Its sort of the cheese in the mousetrap - it is small enough as to not be overly burdensome, yet if war begins, it insures the U.S. is immediately in the war.
All that said, I remember reading somewhere that Khomeini, in response to the White Revolution, used a SOFA agreement with the Shah to drive a lot of the public discontent leading to the 1979 revolution. There is little objectionable about standard SOFA agreements, but as I recall, he twisted the terms pretty effectively. I wonder if there is someone more knowledgable on this matter than I who can discuss it and tell us whether we are essentially seeing the Khomeini playbook at use in Iraq today?
Jun 4, 2008 - 8:01 am 6. Norm Roth:Here is a unique opportunity for Iraq to be THE MOST INFUENTIOL nation in the Middle East. Having American bases on Iraqi soil makes an attack on Iraq, an attack on The U.S. The opinion and influence of Iraq on U.S. foreign policy can not be under estimated. Israeli influence starts and stops with the continued existence of the Israeli nation. Iraq on the other hand, as a democracy, a Muslim nation, and a major oil producer, can make Saudi influence on American policy so diminished that maybe we can deal with their world wide support of Wahhabisim. The positive effect of having a Muslim nation actually denouncing and dealing with extremism in a positive way would make Iraq a major player on the world stage.
Jun 4, 2008 - 6:18 pm 7. w.`s push for US permanence in Iraq - SpartanTailgate.com - Michigan State Spartans Forums:[...] right? And you also realize that no one has seen the proposed agreement, right? Here is some reasonable commentary on the actual situation from someone who has been in Baghdad his entire life…not a political [...]
Jun 5, 2008 - 10:07 am 8. danceswithgoats:Seems to me that we just need to negotiate a “status quo” agreement for the next two years to get us past the UN piece. If the situation progresses dramatically, then we can have a very small footprint. I see no reason to negotiate a long term agreement.
Reference Iraqi soveriegnty; I see any agreement that gives the Iraqis the ability to try our servicemen as DOA. That would be my greatest fear.
Jun 5, 2008 - 12:12 pm 9. Roark:Liberty and Islam are completely incompatible.
Jun 6, 2008 - 5:42 pm 10. Tom W.:“Liberty and Islam are completely incompatible.”
Thanks for that completely useless contribution.
“Four legs good, two legs bad! Four legs good, two legs bad! Cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck!”
Jun 7, 2008 - 3:01 am 11. p2:so their idea of fighting for freedom is to leave it up to the najaf clergy?!!
Jun 8, 2008 - 9:36 am 12. Brian H:this whole idea of handing this issue to the dems before the election is idiocy. Iraq will understand if we say that we think its too early to propose this yet and the proof is that it would come down to the najaf clergy.
duh..
the pubbies are really mushy right now and arent fighting back. I think that W is using his dad’s kid glove theory like when Gorby was opening up. No insults or balls or leadership or whatever.
Delay this…
Here’s an interesting take {How We’ll Know When We’ve Won, A definition of success in Iraq.
by Frederick W. Kagan) on the status quo:
Did you get that? From a premier subversive collaborator with world-wide killer jihadis to #1 anti-terror ally in 5 years ain’t bad.
Jun 10, 2008 - 2:34 am 13. DrKrbyLuv:So I guess GWB won. Hud’a thunk?
Mohammed Fadhil; Thanks for the insightful article.
It is welcome news indeed to see that the Iraqi Government and its citizenry are debating the proposed U.S.-Iraq agreement. And it is heartening to see that the Government is clearly operating within the legal framework of their Constitution as evidenced by the language used in the June 4, 2008 letter from the Iraqi Parliament:
“We, the undersigned members of the council, wish to confirm your concerns that any international agreement that is not ratified by the Iraqi legislative power is considered unconstitutional and illegal, in accordance with the current rulings and laws of the Iraqi Republic. Furthermore, any treaty, agreement or “executive agreement” that is signed between Iraq and the United States will not be legal and will not enter the stage of implementation without first being ratified by the Council of Representatives, in accordance with Article 61 of Section Four of the Iraqi constitution, which gives the Iraqi government’s legislative power, represented by the Council of Representatives, the exclusive right to ratify international treaties and agreements.”
It is ironic that the United States invaded Iraq under false pretenses without a constitutionally-required declaration of war. Congress was complicit in breaching the Constitution when they yielded their most important charge and authority to Bush.
Bush wanted to avoid the national debate and vetting process that would have taken place in Congress. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq was made in spite of the fact that we lacked the solid evidence and imminent danger to warrant a just and legal war. The Constitution is designed to avoid having an unwitting, emotional or corrupt President from taking hold of the war trigger.
One can only hope that the U.S. Government may follow the young Iraqi governments lead in conforming to the rules of law and order prescribed in the Constitution. And, hopefully, both Governments will allow an honest and open debate.
Jun 10, 2008 - 1:59 pm 14. jetlee:” the crowd is easy to convince, thanks to widespread ignorance; sentimental rhetoric is more attractive to them than facts, numbers, and science” - yeh, the world was given facts, numbers and science when America attacked Iraq and we all know how truthful were these facts, numbers and science!
Jun 10, 2008 - 4:40 pm 15. Ani:I had no idea that so many Democrats lived in Iraq.
Jun 11, 2008 - 12:54 pm 16. Pajamas Media » Why Iraq Is Changing Its Tune on Withdrawal:[...] I predicted in an earlier post, Maliki waited before making adjustments in his position towards the deal. However, the change came [...]
Jul 9, 2008 - 6:22 am 17. pettyfoggery » Blog Archive » A Time and Place to Change Horses:[...] in itself). Example being Mohammed Fadhil of ‘Iraq the Model’: As I predicted in an earlier post, Maliki waited before making adjustments in his position towards the deal. However, the change came [...]
Jul 14, 2008 - 7:30 am 18. John in Michigan, USA:The Surge has prevented civil war, but the situation is delicate. Any formal withdrawal from Iraq would have to deal with the problem of who in Iraq gets credit for it.
Whichever faction or sect is seen as responsible for a wholesale, formal, US “withdrawal” will be able to portray itself as the “savior” of the Iraqi people. This would cause all other factions or sects to loose a great, great deal of face. Unless it was handled just right, the other factions (Sunni, Kurd, non-Maliki Shiites) would have no alternative but to redeem the lost honor via violence.
Such violence might be contained short of civil war, but even so, a great deal of additional blood would have been shed.
It is wrong to treat the ‘timetable for withdrawal’ concept as a mere logistical or security problem. It is not simply a case of, how fast can US equipment be removed, how soon are Iraqi forces available to take over security, etc. Withdrawal would have to be an incredibly delicate diplomatic maneuver as well.
Probably, the best way to withdraw would be to at all costs avoid calling it a withdrawal.
It is interesting to speculate if the relevant people in the Bush administration and McCain campaign understand this subtlety. One way to interpret the US position in favor of “permanent bases” in Iraq is that we have no real need for bases; instead we are using this terminology to avoid calling the withdrawal a withdrawal.
Jul 19, 2008 - 11:30 pm