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The Iraq pullback
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki declaring a great victory.
Tomorrow's scheduled U.S. pullback from Iraqi cities has provoked quite a bit of anxious hand-wringing from American analysts and probably premature celebrations from Iraqi officials. While I'm writing about this today because I just can't resist the sweet entreaties of our beloved editorial team, I don't actually think it's that big a deal. American forces have been drawing down in line with the Status of Forces Agreement expectations for months now --- it's not like tomorrow all of the Americans will suddenly click the heels of their ruby slippers and vanish in a puff of smoke. Tomorrow's deadline is far more important symbolically than practically. And here, the Obama administration and General Odierno's team deserve a lot of credit for their careful, rigorous, and publicly affirmed adherence to the agreement.
It's true that there has been an increase in the number of high-profile, high-casualty attacks over the last few weeks. The thing about spoilers is that they try to spoil. The key questions are whether the attacks trigger sectarian mobilization and security dilemma dynamics, seriously undermine confidence in the state and its ability to provide security, or drive momentum towards wider conflict. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence of mounting popular anxiety, but very little evidence of those kinds of conflict dynamics kicking in. For what it's worth, both Iraqi and American officials seem confident -- and remember when the judgment of the commanders on the ground was supposed to be considered sacred writ?
I'm not particularly an optimist on these matters, any more than I was in the past -- but I also see a rapidly declining ability or need for the U.S. to manage these issues. I think that there are still very serious issues surrounding the integration of Sunnis into the emerging Iraqi state and political system -- not just the endlessly dragging integration of the Sons of Iraq into the security forces and civil administration, but the selective targeting of key Awakenings leaders and other ongoing complaints. I also think that some amount of the recent uptick in violence is driven by the disenchantment of some of these Awakenings men, either actively or passively. But it seems clear that Maliki has decided that he can get away with selective repression and co-optation of the various Sunni forces, and will only change his approach if he determines that the price is too high. Maybe he's wrong, maybe he's right -- but that's for Iraqis to determine, not Americans.
Iraqi politics are going to continue to face all kinds of problems, as every analyst under the moon has pointed out. The Arab-Kurd issue, the continuing problems with government capacity, budget problems, and a host of unresolved issues remain. I think that the refugee/IDP issue remains the largest unresolved and virtually untouched issue facing Iraq -- those millions of people uprooted from their homes by force or fear who have few prospects of returning to their original homes, are largely disenfranchised in the emerging Iraqi political system, and who are almost completely unserved by Iraqi state institutions. But slowing down the American drawdown would not materially improve any of these issues. The best thing the U.S. can do is to continue to demonstrate its clear, credible commitment to withdraw on the agreed-upon timeline, and do what it can to help Iraqis adjust to the new realities.
File Photo: AFP/Getty Images
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Writing under this pseudonym, Marc Lynch began his influential Middle East politics blog Abu Aardvark in 2002...
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What pullback?
Is it a 'pullback' when there are 35 - 50,000 US troops and *132,610* mercenaries staying in-theater? http://trunc.it/m9bt
Is it a 'pullback' when the US says it's not barred from using mine-resistant armored vehicles during daytime in Iraqi cities after Wednesday, July 1 2009... The so-called 'withdrawal' deadline"? http://trunc.it/n0fx
"Unfortunately, the reality is more amorphous, if not deliberately confusing, like much of Obama’s foreign policy and war strategy these days." http://trunc.it/mppz
"Amorphous", in context, is just fancy nomenclature for "weasel words". The kind of verbiage anyone who is literate and reads the Western media sees daily.
Here's some VERY recent ones regarding the coup in Honduras (Now totally diplomatically isolated EXCEPT for the US of course): "In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the last senior member of the administration to visit Honduras, just three weeks ago, said that the United States was working toward “full restoration of democratic order (emphasis on 'Weasel words' mine) in Honduras.”
She said that the situation in Honduras “has evolved into a coup.” But when pressed by a reporter, she refused to say explicitly that the United States was demanding that Mr. Zelaya be returned to power,"
Courtesy of the NYTimes: http://trunc.it/mq5i
The whole world is REALLY watching, my Aardvarkian friend, and they ARE NOT liking what they're seeing in Iraq, Afghanistan, OR Latin America.
"Resolution from the OAS Diplomatically Isolates Honduran Leaders" http://trunc.it/ncs8
Tomorrow, tomorrow
is another day.
'Tomorrow' is thrown about as if the day after my birthday finds me a whole year older. The military redeployment of tens of thousands out of Baghdad has been planned for months, and in execution for weeks.
Please give us the latest dope on the Withdrawal/SoFA referendum. Has it been delayed and put on the Jan. 2010 parliament ballot, as some have reported?
It's big -- the end of a brutal urban occupation
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said, “The national united government succeeded in putting down the sectarian war that was threatening the unity and the sovereignty of Iraq.” He made no mention of the American military’s involvement in fighting here for the last six years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/world/middleeast/01iraq.html?ref=global-home
Mahmoud Almusafir, a former Iraqi diplomat, told Al Jazeera: "For me and all the Iraqis, this is the day the Americans confessed that they can't go more in Iraq, and they can't control the cities, they can't control Iraq.
"This is ... [US] face-saving, telling the people of the word that we are not killing Iraqis anymore and letting the government have a proxy war on their behalf."
Asked whether he feared Iraqis will start killing other Iraqis after the withdrawal, he replied: "This is American propaganda. They try to sell it to the world and unfortunately the world bought it.
"There are no Iraqis killing Iraqis. Iraqis - Sunnis, Shias ... have lived together for hundreds of years. The problem is American propaganda started at the beginning to control the city and this divided everyone ... unfortunately the politicians implemented this policy - the poliiticans who came with the Americans in 2003."
"All of us are happy - Shias, Sunnis and Kurds on this day ... the Americans harmed and insulted us too much," Waleed al-Bahadili, an Iraqi attending the celebrations, told the AFP news agency.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/200963054650513164.html
The Iraqi narrative to describe the "Noble Cause" that Bush wouldn't address for Cindy Sheehan has started, and it won't be pretty.
For Iraqis, there'll be no more of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJC1unnuwds
referendum
On the google search level, I'm not seeing anything more recent than 6/16. The Withdrawal/SoFA is the legal basis/shield for US lethal force in Iraq. That's not nuthin.
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=63314
Referendum on SOFA could boot U.S. from Iraq in 2010
http://www.alsumaria.tv/en/Iraq-News/1-33344-100-million-dollars-for-SOFA-referendum.html
Tuesday, June 16, 2009 08:23 GMT
Cabinet spokesman Ali Al Dabbagh affirmed that the government allocated almost 100 million dollar to hold a referendum on the Status of Forces Agreement. Al Dabbagh noted that the government called on Parliament to delay the referendum while head of the Independent High Electoral Commission said the IHEC is ready to conduct the referendum 60 days after passing the law to Parliament.
Iraq after the withdrawal
June 30 is an important date for Iraq to get back more of its sovereignty, but it is more symbolic than anything else. Americans will still be with Iraqi units as advisors, out in the provinces as reconstruction teams, and in Iraq’s ministries. Iraq has far more problems than the Americans anyway. Iraq’s elites are caught up in an on going power struggle that could lead to either a democratic tradition of ruling and opposition parties, or lead to autocratic rule. The dispute between Arabs and Kurds is also heating up, which could threaten the unity of the country. Because of these problems, the economy, services, and refugees are largely being ignored. The economy is still a mess, services do not meet demand, and only about 5% of Iraq’s refugees have returned. Corruption is still rampant. It’s a shame that Iraqis still face these problems after three wars, international sanctions, and the ending of Saddam’s dictatorship.
No referendum anytime soon
None of the Iraqi leaders want this referendum so it's not going to happen. The cabinet put aside some money but that means nothing because parliament needs to assign the money and pass a bill to legalize the vote, and then the Election Commission says it will take 2 months more to set up the vote. The speaker of parliament has rejected at least one proposed bill to do this saying he's going to wait on one from Maliki's office instead, and that's not coming. For more see: http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2009/06/dont-expect-vote-on-sofa-anytime-soon.html
referendum delay
So we're working without a net; no UN, US or Iraqi legal framework for lethal force? The SoFA was accepted only on the premise of a public referendum, no?
Wouldn't the expration of the referendum date put the SoFA terms in limbo, and make a US fire mission, say a drone strike on a building believed to house AQI persons, arguably illegal. At least by Iraqi law? The relatives of civilians killed in such strikes should be raising that issue.
Will the Jan. 2010 elections be pushed back, for want of funding and enabling legislation, by Parliament inaction?
SOFA
There is no mention of a referendum in the SOFA, but there is a stipulation of the sovereign right of Iraq to request the departure of US forces at any time, as well as a recognition of the soveregn right of the US to withdraw forces at any time.
http://media.mcclatchydc.com/smedia/2008/11/25/17/SOFA-official.source.prod_affiliate.91.pdf
the referendum's weight
stems from it being a condition for 'Withdrawal/SoFA' acceptance, imposed by Sistani and other opponents of occupation. If my read is accurate, parliamentary acceptance of the Withdrawal/SoFA was very difficult for Iraqi pols to support, and the referendum provision offered political deniability, when it was inserted in the enacting legislation.
It may not be as iron-clad to continuation of the SoFA as it was described at the time. There's a looseness to election deadlines over there, as with the years and months of delay in the provincial elections- that's troubling to my suspicious mind, since an election delayed can become an election denied, if the reichstag (or Ali's tomb) burns.
The referendum provision was an important message to the US, that occupation was neither acceptable nor negotiable to Sistani. The most rapid withdrawal our military/policy side could agree to was so slow as to make popular rejection of the Withdrawal agreement likely.
The question I raise is whether the referendum provision is woven into the Withdrawal enactment legislation in such a way that the contract is invalid without it. If the SoFA sans referendum is a weak or null contract, does that mean our forces are killing and being killed outside of US jurisdiction? No small matter. A clever advocate like Addison could claim executive authority for Maliki's admin., on a defense/security issue, but Maliki was not willing to cross that line with Sistani and sadrists last year.
Delaying the ref. vote makes acceptance less onerous, and even makes renegotiation of it under a new admin attractive under some scenarios, to parties on both sides. But holding the referendum during national elections holds risk too, if that's really what's contemplated.
SOFA referendum
The only thing the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party got out of the SOFA was s stipulation that there would be a referendum held in July 09 on it. Iraq is not a country ruled by law. The parliament added the referendum to appease the Sunnis, but then will forget about it. They do this all the time. Ex: Article 140 of the constitution said there should've been a referendum on the fate of Kirkuk back on Dec. 31, 2007. Nothing happened. The SOFA will go on like it is right now.
A Kirkuk referendum
wasn't held. But just because no one was fired for failing to produce an election, that doesn't mean nothing happened when it was kicked down the road another cycle.
A functioning democratic system requires willingness to abide a losing outcome as a condition of participation. An election supposedly determining whether Kirkuk is absorbed into Barzani's autocratic semi-state fails the test of being a democratic event. Neither Barzani nor Iraqi Arabs nor Turkmen/Turkey would accept the result, without a test of arms and intimidation. Nor does the issue of eretz kurdistan borders stop at the Kirkuk parrot's beak. My guess is that the battle for Kirkuk is being fought in Mosul right now.
Are you Iraq born, Mr. Motown67 ? Beyond curiosity, the question highlights that I don't have skin in the kurd border issue. A referendum that fans a broader war is not just an exercise in popular rule of law. Re-fighting the Anfal won't make things right for victims of the next round.
no referendum
Not Iraq. I was using the failure to carry through with the Kirkuk referendum as an example that Iraq is not a country ruled by law. The provision in the SOFA agreement to have a vote on it, was simply a way to appease the Iraqi Islamic Party and get the law passed. There appears to be no real commitment by the leadership in parliament or Maliki to have the actual vote. Again, Iraq passes laws all the time which are never followed.
rule of law
is understandably loose in Iraq. And the delayed Kirkuk vote is an example of bait and switch, no argument there. I'm less convinced that the Sunni were the only ones gaining deniability thru the SoFA referendum provision. Was Sistani also pressing for popular voice in continuing US operations thru next year? Muqtadah was trying to leverage his opposition.
But it's not so understandable if the USA is operating an über-state above the Iraqi gov't, conducting airstrikes and covert extrajudicial killing without a legal framework under US law. If Iraq is unable to sign meaningful treaties governing our Withdrawal and Status of Forces, then maybe we need to ask for war powers from the UN charter again.
Easy civil and uniformed acceptance of the military ops du jour is part of our disease.
I was using the failure to
I was using the failure to carry through with the Kirkuk referendum as an example that Iraq is not a country ruled by law.
I'm pretty much out of the loop on iraqi politics, I know hardly more than I see in the international media.
So, when iraqi politicians make an agreement which is overtaken by events and they privately work out a new deal that satisfies the same people the old deal satisfied, that's fine for them.
But when one side agrees to a deal and later just sort of forgets to carry out their side of it, that makes me think the next deal will be harder. Why make deals with people who forget to keep their word? Why make any deal at all with such people?
The iraqi public, outside of kurdistan, wants US forces out. What iraqi politician gains by avoiding that referendum? I suppose there might be some iraqi politicians who believe that without US soldiers to protect them they would be killed. That seems to me like an unusually hard-eyed view. Most politicians want to believe their voters love them. The idea that their supporters are too weak, that only foreign soldiers can protect them, would not come naturally.
Oh! A politician could ignore his deals if he has the US military backing him up! He can promise anything and then do what he wants because it doesn't really matter what anybody thinks provided they aren't americans. The only thing about that is that he would need the US military to stay there for the rest of his life backing him up. Maybe that's what Maliki is aiming for?
Latest from Iraq on SOFA referendum
I just posted this over at the Ricks blog, but the latest news from Iraq is that if they're going to have the referendum it will be the same time as the Jan. 2010 parliamentary elections.
First off, the referendum was a second bill passed at the same time as the SOFA which said that there would be power sharing in the government and security forces, and a vote on the SOFA. Again, this was passed to get the Iraqi Islamic Party to go along. It is also NON-BINDING.
The view today seems to be that the Kurds and the Islamic Party would like U.S. troops to stay because it's a check on Maliki's power. He can't send the security forces off to provoke the Kurds over the disputed territories for example, without the U.S. stepping in. Maliki could use the referendum to bash these two groups in the parliamentary vote as well since he's been riding on the "I got the Americans to leave" theme these days, which is quite popular, so any party that advocates for extending the U.S. stay he would go after.
Again, this was passed to get
Again, this was passed to get the Iraqi Islamic Party to go along. It is also NON-BINDING.
All very strange. If the US congress passed a bill with a special amendment added to get some congressmen to go along, would the congressmen go along if their amendment was nonbinding? Very strange.
The view today seems to be that the Kurds and the Islamic Party would like U.S. troops to stay because it's a check on Maliki's power.
I can see the kurds want us to stay. We're their only friends in the world. And we would stop the iraqi government from waging a major offensive against kurdistan, though we might not notice little provocations. I don't see that anybody else would think that way. We've pretty consistently supported Maliki over everybody else except the kurds. We made a separate peace with SOI and then handed them over to Maliki. I sure don't see how anybody else would feel like we'd be a check on Maliki. Well, except for some of the tiny minority groups like the turkmens etc. Again, we're their only friends in iraq so they want us to stay close. Kind of like the Montagnards in vietnam.
Seems like it's mostly minorities that aren't sunni that might want us to stay. Apart from the kurds, precisely the ones that are so weak and have so little clout that they'd rather throw themselves on our mercy than anybody else's.
So, Maliki doesn't want us to stay. He's building his reputation on getting us to leave. Sunnis don't want us to stay; they want us to stop supplying the shia army. Sistani doesn't want us to stay, he wants a democracy and sovereignty. Why would the referendum not happen?
And why do we want to stay? If iraqis depend on us to keep them from fighting each other, what's the timeline on how long they'll need us to do that? Isn't it 15-25 years? Do we want to keep significant forces tied down in iraq that long? Does it seem like iraqis are getting more reconciled to us staying?
It looks like a very long and expensive process just to be able to say we didn't lose. Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to just admit we lost and pull out? Then we could look at what went wrong. Like, who was it that ordered the US Army not to do any planning beyond winning the war? I heard it was Cheney himself, but I don't have that confirmed. Why was Cheney in the chain of command? Until we actually admit that things went seriously wrong it's hard to look at what went wrong so we can avoid those errors next time.
Check on maliki
Maliki has been going after and intimidating the Sons of Iraq 2 years now. In the summer of 08 and currently now he launched military offensives in Diyala that turned into crackdowns on the SOI and Islamic party. In 08 the military shut down all the SOI in the provincial capital and arrested about 100 fighters and Islamic party members. The 2 forged a successful alliance that won them the provincial council. That's why Maliki has gone after them. The Islamic party wants the US to stay because they help their members and SOI get out of jail.
So on the one hand, the US
So on the one hand, the US trains, arms, and supplies the army Maliki uses to attack SOI and Islamic party.
On the other hand the US sometimes ineffectually slows down Maliki's attacks on SOI and Islamic party.
And you figure SOI and Islamic party want US to stay there so we'll continue to ineffectually slow down Maliki's attacks.
But we're obviously a much better ally for Maliki than for SOI etc. Why don't they instead want us to go away and take away our support for Maliki's army too? Without our aid Maliki's army would fall apart in a month or less. Their training is based on the idea that they get logistics that only we can supply. So if we do actually pull out then the training becomes mostly useless, and the unsupplied troops become mostly useless.
Without our aid, the tactical situation gives the defense an edge. Attackers who don't have much artillery and no air support and outmoded armor, face IEDs and RPG fire. Easier to negotiate with people in defensible enclaves than roll over them. But people in enclaves that can't feed themselves can get starved out eventually, and most of iraq can't feed itself. The bulk of the food currently comes through Basra, right? But a little could come from turkey, iran, syria, jordan, and I guess kuwait. So whoever can control a stretch of the railroad lines can hold hostage everybody distal on that track.
Lots of room for things to go wrong but far more likely to get a negotiated settlement than when somebody thinks they can depend on the USA to make it come out their way.
In 08 the military shut down all the SOI in the provincial capital and arrested about 100 fighters and Islamic party members. The 2 forged a successful alliance that won them the provincial council. That's why Maliki has gone after them.
Ah, US-supported democracy in action. If only we could treat the GOP that way ... if they start to gain too much in some state or city, send in the Marines to arrest them wholesale and take the state government back. Our democracy would run so much *smoother* if we could do that.
Lack of postwar planning
That was Rumsfeld and the White House. Rumsfeld didn't believe in nation building and that trickled down the hain of command. The White House and members of the Defense Dept like Wolfowitz argued that Iraq would pay for itself. Basically eerything would be inning the day after, oil would take care of everything and the US would be out in weeks. In fact Rumsfeld stuck to the idea of withdrawing until the day he was removed.
Thx for the clarification
on the Withdrawal/SoFA vs. Referendum legislations. Assuming Motown's distinction is correct, wasn't the weight of Sistani behind holding the vote at the earliest practical moment? Wasn't there a morally binding connection of referendum to approval of SoFA-continued US war ops prior to 2011 withdrawal? Does Maliki's 'hurrah, mission accomplished' moment last week successfully dodge the referendum compromise?
The original July referendum date was concurrent with an operational demonstration of US withdrawal. The unspoken assumption there was that Iraq forces would manage security for the vote, held after US return to barracks and initial withdrawal moves. ISF security for the vote could have been an impressive 'wheels off' confidence building event, two steps forward toward true sovereignty.
Running the referendum concurrent with the national election next year means that Iraqi ISF security for what we regard as a moot point issue has not been demonstrated. Au contrare, the justification for continuing 2005-6 levels of US troops in Iraq is to provide stability and security for the next election cycle. A 130K US occupation/election security force going into 2010 doesn't say the same thing as troops pulling out of Baghdad in June 2009.
By this analysis, Maliki-Odierno delaying the referendum can't just be tossed off as 'no big deal, not binding anyway'.
Sistani and SOFA
From my understanding Sistani just said the SOFA needed widespread support amongst Iraqis. Maliki got almost all the major parties to sign off on it. Mission accomplished for him. Again, the referendum was pushed by the Islamic Party, not any Shiites trying to follow Sistani.
The Iraq pullback
After inciting regional rebellion by Shiites and Kurds against Sunni Saddam Hussein’s regime by imposing no-fly zones under Clinton administration, US can do nothing but watch helplessly as US-installed Shiite regime in Iraq unifies Iraq. Maliki regime has seen at close quarters how West manipulates opponents of regimes that US does not like i.e. recent Iranian elections. Maliki definitely had that in mind when he told Vice President Biden to butt out in no uncertain terms.
US want Maliki government to truly create a harmonious government looking after the interests of all Iraqis, not just Shiites but Sunnis and Kurds as well. But Maliki government is NOT going to oblige US anymore than Saddam government did. It won’t be long after US troops depart in June, 2010 that Shiites first will unite with Sunnis to suppress Kurds and then Shiites will suppress Sunnis. Bloodbaths similar to those under Saddam will repeat until Shiites establish their supremacy with the help of Iran if need be and US won’t be able to do anything about it.
More On Sistani, Sunnis, and SOFA referendum
I went through my notes to find articles supporting my points. Here's what I got:
Domergue, Jeremy and Cochrane, Marisa, “Balancing Maliki,” Insitute for Understanding War, June 2009
- Iraqi Accordance Front claimed SOFA gave too much power to Maliki
- Included Political Reform Document to SOFA vote
- Called for power sharing in government and security forces and a July 09 referendum
- Backed by Iraqi National List, Fadhila and Kurdsitan Alliance
- Maliki needed as much support as possible for SOFA because Sistani said that it needed
to be backed by the Iraqi people
- Gave into demands for the Political Reform Document as a result
- Was passed on 11/27/08 by parliament
- SOFA was binding Political Reform Document was not
Ashton, Adam and Fadel, Leila, “Iraqi cabinet Okays U.S. troop withdraw, Parliament could scuttle,” McClatchy Newspapers, 11/16/08
Aswat al-Iraq, “IAF will not support pact – al-Dulaimi,” 11/17/08
Aswat al-Iraq, “Security deal to pass 5 stages before approval,” 11/17/08
Abdul-Zahra, Qassim, “Sunni Arab support key to US-Iraq security deal,” Associated Press, 11/25/08
Abdul-Zahra, Qassim, “Iraq Shiites, Kurds meet Sunni demand on US pact,” Associated Press, 11/26/08
- These are all articles that say it was the Islamic Party/Accordance Front that were pushing for a referendum and power sharing to be included in SOFA negotiations
Rubin, Alissa, Robertson, Campbell and Farrell, Stephen, “Iraqi Parliament Approves U.S. Security Pact,” New York Times, 11/27/08
- Article about passing of SOFA in parliament, says Sunnis got their referendum and reconciliation bill passed