WASHINGTON - The text of the United States-Iraq Status of Forces Agreement
(SOFA) signed by US ambassador Ryan Crocker and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar
Zebari on Monday closes the door to a further US military presence beyond 2011
even more tightly than the previous draft and locks in a swift end to Iraqi
dependence on the US military that appears to be irreversible.
The agreement ends the George W Bush administration's aspiration for a
long-term military presence, aimed both at projecting power in the region from
bases in Iraq and at maintaining that Iraqi military dependence on US training,
advice and support.
The agreement represents an acute embarrassment for the Bush
administration, which had taken the position through most of the summer that
the agreement would be consistent with its demand for a "conditions-based"
withdrawal. Instead of adjusting its rhetoric to reflect the actual agreement,
White House press secretary Dana Perino took the line on Monday that the
agreement contained only "aspirational dates" for complete withdrawal and for
withdrawal from Iraqi cities and towns.
That was a Bush administration demand that was still in the negotiating text as
of August 13, in the form of language referring to "time targets" rather than a
firm deadline for withdrawal and which even allowed the two sides to "review"
the "conditions that might lead to one side asking the other to extend or
reduce the time periods" for withdrawal from cities and complete withdrawal.
But the Bush administration soon dropped those demands, perhaps in the
recognition that a Barack Obama administration would withdraw even more rapidly
than the date set in the agreement.
Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also supported
that White House line by suggesting that the US military would continue to talk
with its Iraqi counterparts, and that it is "theoretically" possible for the
deadline for complete withdrawal to be extended.
But Mullen's expression of continued hope for reversing the verdict of the
negotiations dramatized the degree to which the US military leadership has
remained out of touch with the Iraqi political reality of nationalism and
resistance to dependence on US military forces.
The previous draft, dated October 13, did contain language that offered a
formal way to extend the 2011 deadline for complete US withdrawal beyond that
date. That language allowed Iraq to "ask the US government to keep specific
forces for the purposes of training and support of the Iraqi security forces"
but would have required that "a special agreement will be negotiated and signed
by both sides in accordance with the laws and constitutional requirements in
both countries" or a revision of the treaty itself. In either case, the Iraqi
parliament would have been required to approve such a request.
But the Bush administration agreed in the final pact to delete both those
provisions, on the demand of the Iraqi government. That demand, in turn, was
the result of intense pressure from Iraqi Shi'ite parties that are close to
Iran and popular displeasure with the military occupation.
The pro-Iranian parties had threatened to oppose the agreement in the Iraqi
parliament if those and other offending sections were not changed.
It has been known since last summer that the agreement would require that US
troops move out of populated areas by the end of June 2009. But a provision
introduced into the text in October strongly hints that the Iraqi government
will seek to speed up that process even further by establishing a timetable for
full turnover of responsibility to Iraqi forces before that date.
Article 25 says US combat forces must "withdraw from all cities, towns and
villages as soon as the Iraqi forces take over the full security responsibility
in them". The June 30, 2009, date is thus not the earliest that it could happen
but the latest date for the completion of the process.
A further indication of the intention of the Iraqi government to speed up the
process of reducing dependence on the US military is new language in the final
draft suggesting that Iraq wants a complete timetable for the phased withdrawal
of US troops from the country. Article 25 also requires the creation of
"mechanisms and arrangements to reduce the US forces levels within the
specified time period ..."
US troops are forbidden by the agreement from carrying out operations without
prior Iraqi approval and from detaining any Iraqi without an Iraqi court order.
These tight new constraints on US forces in Iraq represent a stark contrast to
the virtual complete independence with which US forces operated there until
2008.
The SOFA represents a formal recognition of a remarkable shift in power
relations between an occupying power and the state created under its
protection. What had appeared to be a safely dependent client regime was
instead a regime that was waiting for the right moment to assert real control
over the military presence of that power.
Not only the Bush administration and the US military but most of the US
national security elite assumed throughout most of the negotiations on the SOFA
that Iraq would agree to the advisory, training and support missions that the
US military wanted to carry out in Iraq. US officials and supporters of such
missions talked about 40,000 to 50,000 US training and support troops remaining
in the country indefinitely.
The supporters of such a role believed that Iraqi security forces could not
fight a counter-insurgency war without the US military directly involved in the
effort. But that assumption turned out to be an expression of parochial
institutional and political interests rather than reflecting the views of the
Iraqi leadership.
The willingness of the Iraqi government to get along without the help that most
of Washington believed was essential to the regime's survival appears to
reflect profound differences in interests between the two governments over how
to handle both Sunni and Shi'ite dissidents. The Shi'ite-dominated regime feels
more confident of its ability to deal with the potential for Sunni military
resistance without an overweaning US military presence than with it.
It also has greater confidence in its ability to handle the problem of Sadrist
nationalist resistance by assuming a nationalist position on the US military
than by relying on its help. From the Iraqi government perspective, a series of
agreements with Shi'ite leader Muqtada al-Sadr brokered by Iran provided more
security in 2008 against the Sadrists than US military operations had provided
up to that time.
In a broader geopolitical sense, the SOFA reveals the political reality that US
military power in Iraq could not be translated into longer-term influence over
the country. Once a Shi'ite regime with close political and religious ties to
Iran came to power, it was inevitable that reliance on US military power would
be only a temporary policy, to be phased out when conditions permitted it.
The SOFA negotiations provided the occasion for that phase-out to be
formalized.
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.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
