[Originally published in the Barre Times-Argus and Rutland Herald.]
America’s military presence in Iraq was legally established by a United Nations Security Council resolution that expires at the end of 2008. At that point, unless the United States has negotiated a security agreement directly with the Iraqi government that authorizes the continued presence of troops, there will be no legal basis for a U.S. military presence in Iraq.
In the absence of such an agreement, the United States will be faced with the humiliating prospect of trying to get the UN Security Council, which has never supported our Iraq invasion and occupation, to renew our license to remain there. Given the attitudes of China and Russia, not to mention those countries that used to be our closest allies, such as Britain and France, that seems like a fool’s journey. So, we are faced with negotiations.
Early this year, the United States began those negotiations with the Al Maliki government on Iraq’s future and America’s role therein. Early media reporting on this process was focused on whether or not the negotiations would produce an agreement or a treaty. If it produced a treaty, as appeared to be the case, given some wording which committed the United States to maintain the stability of Iraq’s government from internal and external threats, it appeared that it would require congressional approval, something on which the Bush administration clearly could not count.
By March, media reporting, which has remained minimal throughout this process, began to focus fuzzily on the real issues at hand, which included a formalized U.S./Iraq relationship and the future military role of the United States in Iraq, in effect, a status of forces agreement.
Earlier reporting between 2003 and 2005 alleged that the United States was planning for a long-term military presence through the establishment of “enduring bases” in Iraq. Additional reporting at that time said that the United States was planning to establish four super-bases in Iraq into which we would consolidate American forces. Congress has appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars for such construction and the presumptive Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain has since added his contribution of a 100-year occupation.
In the past few months, little has been written about the negotiations. We have been told by the Bush administration only that the details of U.S. negotiating positions were – and would remain -secret.
Early this month however, the Iraqis apparently began to leak details to European media. These U.S. demands reportedly include: U.S. control of Iraqi airspace below 29,000 feet, long-term use of dozens of military bases, the right to pursue the War on Terror inside Iraq, wide U.S. arrest authority, the right to launch military actions without consultation and the grant of immunity for all American personnel in Iraq from arrest under Iraqi law.
What we know for a fact is that on June 4, a group of Iraqi parliamentarians presented a letter to the U.S. Congress, which demanded that the United States establish a specific timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq before any agreement on conditions could be reached. The letter was signed by a majority of the members of the Iraq Parliament. The letter further stated:
“The majority of Iraqi representatives strongly reject any military-security, economic, commercial, agricultural, investment or political agreement with the United States that is not linked to clear mechanisms that obligate the occupying American military forces to fully withdraw from Iraq.”
In the face of such a statement, it is reasonable to believe that reporting on the demands attributed to the United States above are likely to be accurate.
So, where does that leave this matter? We do have some choices – none of them good. We can literally attempt to browbeat the Iraqi negotiators into agreeing to our demands. That might well cause a flat refusal, or a mass Iraqi withdrawal from the negotiations that could precipitate a real crisis. Or, the Iraqis might accede. In that case, the agreement would go to the Iraq Parliament where it would almost certainly be rejected.
Or, we can go hat in hand to the UN, an organization that excites only scorn from the neocons in the Bush administration and beg them to validate our continued stay in Iraq. That might be rejected out of hand, or those nations in the Security Council that do not agree with us might well attach humiliating conditions to it.
Or, we can give them a fixed timetable, acceptable to the Iraqis, for the withdrawal of U.S. forces. Presumably that would not be in 100 years.
Whatever we do, in the absence of the existence of an overall agreement with the Iraq government, our lease on the continued U.S. military occupation of Iraq expires on Dec. 31.
Perhaps the Iraqis are going to do what we have been unable to do ourselves get us out of Iraq. In the process, perhaps they, rather than our own impotent Congress, are going to put an end to the Bush dream of bequeathing to his successor an entanglement from which he cannot escape for decades. Do not believe for one minute that a U.S.-initiated withdrawal from Iraq would be a simple matter, or that it would not have major political consequences here in America. Perhaps the only smooth way out is to be tossed out!
Such an end to our occupation would come from our own misbegotten policies. The Iraqis appear to be sick and tired of us and clearly want us out of their country on their terms. We truly have no one to blame but ourselves.
We cannot legitimately feel aggrieved by this. It is part of the democratic process in Iraq where we have relentlessly pushed democracy. This is precisely what happened when we pushed successfully for democracy in the recent Palestine elections that brought Hamas to power. We might start being more careful what we wish for.
Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in Eastern and Western Europe, the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff. He lives in Williston.
