Iraq stands firm against US threat
By Gareth Porter
WASHINGTON - The threat by the George W Bush administration last week to
withdraw all economic and military support from the Iraqi government if it does
not accept the US-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) has raised the stakes
in the political-diplomatic struggle over the issue.
However, most Iraqi politicians are now so averse to any formal legitimization
of the US military presence - and particularly of extraterritorial legal rights
over US troops in the country - that even that threat is unlikely to save the
pact.
For most Iraqis, the agreement is all too reminiscent of the unequal security
agreement that gave military rights to British imperialism in Iraq from 1930 to
1958. The symbolism of foreign
domination inherent in that historical parallel makes it risky for political
party leaders and members of parliament to be seen as going along with any
agreement that provides special privileges to the US.
In a move reflecting a new sense of desperation that has overtaken US
officials, General Ray Odierno, the top US commander in Iraq, warned Iraqi
officials that they would lose a total of US$16 billion in assistance for the
economy and Iraqi security forces unless the agreement was approved by
parliament, according to a story by McClatchy newspapers reporter Leil Fadel on
Sunday.
The threat was contained in a three-page document listing all of the forms of
assistance that the US would terminate if a US-Iraqi agreement was not
accepted, which was given to various top Iraqi officials last week, Fadel
reported. USA Today reported that the list included "tens" of functions that
the George W Bush administration was now threatening to halt if the pact was
not approved by parliament.
Many of the forms of US assistance to Iraq which Washington says it would end,
including training Iraqi security forces, patrolling the borders and waterways
and providing air traffic control and air defense, could not be continued
without a legal basis for the US military presence - this is currently provided
by a United Nations mandate which expires at the end of the year.
Neither economic assistance nor arms sales, however, require any such
agreement. Nor would the release of US detainees, which is also reportedly on
the list. The threat to halt that aid is an obvious bid to pressure the entire
Iraqi political system to accept an agreement close to the one now on the
table.
The US move was apparently based on the premise that Iraqi officials and
parliamentarians would be shocked by the sudden loss of so much that they had
depended on. Iraqi Vice President Tariq al Hashimi was reported to have said
Iraqi leaders had been taken by surprise by the move.
But in the current Iraqi political environment, the US move appears to be
strengthening Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's determination to reject the
"final draft" agreement that the Bush administration believed had been agreed
on this month.
Maliki's cabinet agreed on Tuesday to demand a series of changes in the draft,
despite Bush administration warnings that it is not open to any major
revisions. According to the Washington Post, cabinet ministers decided that the
agreement must cede more legal authority over US soldiers accused of crimes
than is allowed in the current draft, which limits Iraqi jurisdiction to
off-duty and off-base crimes.
That demand is certain to be rejected by Washington, which had already granted
more authority to Iraqi courts than had been allowed in any previous US SOFA
agreement.
The Post reported that the Iraqi government also intended to make the 2011 date
for complete withdrawal of US troops even more ironclad than in the current
draft, and to explicitly prohibit any attack on neighboring countries from
Iraqi bases. The latter demand was in response to the US commando raid on
Syrian territory launched from Iraq last weekend.
One reason US pressure tactics are not likely to be effective in forcing the
Iraqi government and parliament to approve the existing draft is that the Bush
administration is a lame duck, and Iraqis expect a Barack Obama administration
to be less aggressive in Iraq.
A senior Shi'ite parliamentarian, Ali al-Adeeb, who has reflected Maliki's
views on the pact, said last week the prime minister is not intimidated by US
threats because he believes he has the option of getting an extension of the UN
mandate, and may hope to negotiate with a new US administration in January.
Even more important in shaping the Iraqi political response, however, is the
perception that the proposed agreement is the same type of unequal military
relationship that Iraq had with the British for decades. With local elections
next year, Iraqi politicians are afraid to be viewed by the voters as
supporting such a document.
Jalal al Din al Sagheer, deputy head of the Shi'ite Muslim Islamic Supreme
Council of Iraq - one of the political parties that opposes the pact in
parliament - explained to McClatchy newspapers last week that any Iraqi
official who accepted the agreement "will be taken as an agent for the
Americans".
Maliki and other Iraqi politicians remember well the cost paid by politicians
who fell afoul of Iraqi nationalists' efforts to revise the 1930 Anglo-Iraqi
treaty, which gave the British special military privileges in Iraq that limited
Iraq's independence.
When the Iraqi government revised the treaty in 1948 to extend it for 20 more
years, it hoped to limit British military influence. The British agreed to
evacuate the bases, but were given the right to return in the event of war. The
revised treaty also set up a Joint Defense Board, which nationalist officers
viewed as a symbol of continuing British domination.
That new agreement triggered mass protests in Baghdad, which were brutally put
down by Iraqi police, killing 400 people. The first Shi'ite prime minister of
Iraq, Salih Jaber, who renegotiated the agreement, was soon forced out of
office.
In 1954, US secretary of state John Foster Dulles, looking for allies against
the Soviet Union, pressured Iraq to join the Baghdad Pact with Britain, Turkey,
Iran and Pakistan. The British government wanted Iraqi membership in the pact
as a means of assuring British access to military bases in Iraq after the
Anglo-Iraq pact expired in 1958.
Iraqi premier Nuri al-Said preferred to stay out of the pact, but he needed US
military assistance to rearm Iraq. In a parallel to the tactic now being
applied, the Dwight D Eisenhower administration said he would get no arms and
even threatened to cut all existing economic assistance to Iraq unless Said
joined the pact.
Said gave in to that pressure and joined the pact in 1955. But three years
later, nationalist officers overthrew the monarchical regime of Iraq and killed
Said.
According to Phebe Marr, a specialist on Iraqi history, Maliki's grandfather
had been a cabinet minister, and Maliki himself is certainly familiar with the
story of premier Jaber's negotiations with the British on the Anglo-Iraq
treaty. He will also remember Nuri Said's fate in 1958.
That history helps to explain why the issue of Iraqi jurisdiction over US
troops has taken on such extraordinary importance in Iraqi politics. A leading
Shi'ite cleric in the holy city of Najaf attacked the agreement for giving US
forces immunity from Iraqi jurisdiction in his Friday sermon on October 17,
declaring, "We consider this a basic point, because it represents sovereignty."
Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing
in US national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book,
Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was
published in 2006.
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