Details of the SOFA Emerge Posted by Shawn Brimley

After months of negotiations, false starts, and a visit by Condi, it appears as though the arrangements of the new U.S.-Iraq bilateral security relationship are emerging. According to the Washington Post:

U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have agreed to the withdrawal of all U.S. combat forces from the country by the end of 2011, and Iraqi officials said they are "very close" to resolving the remaining issues blocking a final accord that governs the future American military presence here...

[N]egotiators made progress on a specific timetable outlining the departure of U.S. forces from Iraq, something Maliki is under considerable domestic political pressure to secure. In the past, Rice and other U.S. officials have spoken of an "aspirational time horizon" that would make withdrawals contingent on the continuation of improved security conditions and the capabilities of Iraqi security forces.

U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have now also agreed to a conditions-based withdrawal of U.S. combat troops by the end of 2011, a date further in the future than the Iraqis initially wanted. The deal would leave tens of thousands of U.S. troops inside Iraq in supporting roles, such as military trainers, for an unspecified time.

Negotiators agreed several weeks ago to reduce the presence of all U.S. forces in Iraqi cities, among the most dangerous places soldiers operate, by the end of next year. That process would entail consolidating U.S. troops now deployed in small neighborhood posts into larger bases outside city centers, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials involved in the talks.

In the abstract this is good news - we certainly need a legal basis for continuing military operations as we drawdown troops slowly, safely, and responsibly. But what will make this extremely difficult and dangerous is the Maliki government's unwillingness to integrate a meaningful fraction of the 103,000 armed (mostly Sunni) local militias that have helped underpin the reduction in violence over the last year or so. This according to the New York Times:

The Shiite-dominated government in Iraq is driving out many leaders of Sunni citizen patrols, the groups of former insurgents who joined the American payroll and have been a major pillar in the decline in violence around the nation.

In restive Diyala Province, Unites States and Iraqi military officials say there were orders to arrest hundreds of members of what is known as the Awakening movement as part of large security operations by the Iraqi military. At least five senior members have been arrested there in recent weeks, leaders of the groups say.

West of Baghdad, former insurgent leaders contend that the Iraqi military is going after 650 Awakening members, many of whom have fled the once-violent area they had kept safe. While the crackdown appears to be focused on a relatively small number of leaders whom the Iraqi government considers the most dangerous, there are influential voices to dismantle the American backed movement entirely.

“The state cannot accept the Awakening,” said Sheik Jalaladeen al-Sagheer, a leading Shiite member of Parliament. “Their days are numbered.”

So while we are busy negotiating a timeline for a withdrawal and a shift in mission, there is potentially going to be a rising level of violence as the Maliki government seems to believe it can solve the outstanding political issues "the Iraqi way."

Question: What happened the last time we humiliated tens of thousands of armed Sunni men in Iraq? 

But what really gets me going is the fact that we didn't seem to use these negotiations to push the Maliki government towards any political accomodation as a condition of our continued financial support and our training and advising of the Iraqi military. I feel that by negotiating this agreement without making our residual support conditional on political accomodation, we are dealing the next Commander in Chief an extremely bad hand.

Comments

[tatere]

"I feel that by negotiating this agreement without making our residual support conditional on political accomodation, we are dealing the next Commander in Chief an extremely bad hand."

Well, yes, that's the idea, isn't it? If they're forced to agree to a withdrawal timetable, try to set it up so that it blows up in the next guy's face?

If it's Obama, the entire war from the beginning becomes his fault.

If it's McCain, he'll enjoy it.

[David Tomlin]

But what really gets me going is the fact that we didn't seem to use these negotiations to push the Maliki government towards any political accommodation as a condition of our continued financial support and our training and advising of the Iraqi military.

Remarks like this always make me wonder if the writer is old enough to remember Vietnam.

Diem was a little before my own time, but I know Americans were constantly complaining of his resistance to American advice on how to deal with his opposition. Finally the U.S. backed a coup against him, despite his prescient warning, 'You will find no Washingtons among my generals.'

There followed a time of instability, of coup after regime after coup after regime, until Thieu consolidated his power. I was reaching the age to be interested, and the op-eds were full of calls for Thieu to accommodate the opposition, for the U.S. to put more pressure on him to do so. We all know how that worked out.

[Don Bacon]

"a conditions-based withdrawal"

That says it all. For five years, starting with Rumsfeld, the Pentagon position has been that US military presence would be "conditions-based," and as has been noted conditions are bound to worsen. The US has 20,000 Sunnnis in prison, for one thing, many of them tortured. What are they going to do when they're eventually released, forgive and forget? I don't think so. So move along, nothing to see here.

The US military will be in Iraq forever, just as they are in Germany, Japan and Korea. By the way, in the latter the Pentagon has recently determined that North Korea after fifty-six years is no longer a threat, so Korea (and the Koreans have no say in the matter, except to bear part of the cost) will become an accompanied tour, with housing areas, schools etc. to be built to accommodate military families in this far-off land.

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