What Will Barack Do About Iraq?
By Larry Johnson on November 18, 2008 at 12:35 PM in Current Affairs
(bumped up by NoQuarter)
News today that the Government of Iraq is ready to sign onboard to an agreement that withdraws all U.S. forces by December 2011. That is thirty-six months:
The US and Iraq will formally commit to a pact that withdraws all American forces from the country within three years, and pulls all combat troops out of most provinces by mid-2009, the Iraqi cabinet announced yesterday. The deal for the first time prescribes a timeline for an American departure from Iraq, which the US president-elect, Barack Obama, had foreshadowed as top of his foreign policy agenda when he takes office on January 20.
In a development that caught coalition officials by surprise, Iraq’s cabinet yesterday ended one year of protracted negotiations by agreeing to a series of US amendments to draft documents. All but one cabinet minister present at the meeting committed to the agreement.
On Saturday the leading Shia cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani dropped his opposition to the deal, in a shift that some observers believe paved the way for a Shia bloc in the cabinet to vote in its favour.
Who cares if the Government of Iraq wants all U.S. forces out of Iraq by December 2011? Barack Obama initially promised to have all U.S. combat troops out of Iraq by December 2009. (I would refer you to the webpage but the Obama campaign scrubbed this site. I presume they decided this was not a promise they could keep.) A copy of the original position paper is still available here:
A SUBSTANTIAL, IMMEDIATE REDEPLOYMENT OF AMERICAN TROOPS
“There is no military solution in Iraq. The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq’s leaders to resolve their civil war is to begin immediately to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year–now.”
All Combat Troops Redeployed by 2009: Barack Obama would immediately begin redeploying American troops from Iraq. The withdrawal would be strategic and phased, directed by military commanders on the ground and done in consultation with the Iraqi government. Troops would be removed from secure areas first, with troops remaining longer in more volatile areas. The drawdown would begin immediately with one to two combat brigades redeploying each month and all troops engaged in combat operations out by the end of next year.
Obama would immediately begin to pull out troops engaged in combat operations at a pace of one or two brigades every month, to be completed by the end of next year. He would call for a new constitutional convention in Iraq, convened with the United Nations, which would not adjourn until Iraq’s leaders reach a new accord on reconciliation. He would use presidential leadership to surge our diplomacy with all of the nations of the region on behalf of a new regional security compact. And he would take immediate steps to confront the humanitarian disaster in Iraq, and to hold accountable any perpetrators of potential war crimes.
But President-elect then changed the timeline. To 16 months. Assuming we start the clock on 20 January 2009, that means all U.S. soldiers should be out of Iraq by 1 June 2010.
All of this still hinges on the Iraqi legislature approving the deal. The key provisions are:
_ U.S. forces must withdraw from Iraq by Jan. 1, 2012.
_ U.S. forces must withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009.
_ Iraqi authorities are granted extensive power over the operations and movements of U.S. forces.
_ The U.S. cannot use Iraqi territory to attack Iraq’s neighbors, including Syria and Iran.
Iraq’s neighbor, Iran, who has been supporting the Government of Maliki, expressed surprisingly strong support for the deal:
Some hard-liners continued to lash out at the agreement, but comments in the state media and from one of the clerical state’s most powerful figures signaled Tehran may be taking the view that no matter what it dislikes in the deal, it will eventually mean the departure of the Americans.
“The Iraqi government has done very well regarding this,” the Web site of Iran’s state television quoted judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi as saying. “We hope the outcome of (the deal) will be in favor of Islam and Iraqi sovereignty.”
Iran welcomes anything that it believes will reduce U.S. influence in the region.
This will be one of the first nettlesome issues facing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Will President Obama insist on his 16 month timeline or will he decide he must be more flexible and deal with the realities on the ground? I am guessing the latter. What do you think?
by Ronald Scott
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