Negotiations over the future role and status of America’s armed forces in Iraq have been underway for some time, while any sign of agreement between the respective parties appears inconclusive and highly precarious. With the July 31st deadline already passed, the ongoing dispute over the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) shows little sign of resolution. The Bush administration has been somewhat desperate to push the measure through and establish a legal framework for the continued presence of US forces in Iraq since the UN Security Council mandate is due to expire this December.
This so-called “strategic alliance” was immediately met with fierce and unremitting opposition by Iraqi politicians, religious dignitaries and the general public. The tide of opposition is such that Iraqi politicians on all sides know that whoever uncritically accedes to American demands will never be forgiven or forgotten. Their political credibility will quite simply be left in tatters.
In a story first broken in early June by the UK Independent’s Middle East Correspondent Patrick Cockburn, it became clear that the aim of the Bush administration was to ensure the permanent presence of US forces inside Iraq possessed a legal footing, so that the subsequent occupant of the Oval Office, would feel little compulsion to embark upon a course of large-scale troop withdrawals. The other and more damning implication of Baghdad’s “strategic alliance” with Washington would be that Iraq for all intents and purposes would be transformed into an American client-state, without sovereignty in any meaningful sense of the word.
In his article, Cockburn, who is amongst the most well-informed and astute foreign observers of Iraqi politics, details the content of the would-be US-Iraqi agreement. When the conditions laid down by SOFA originally came to light, it was said to include the long-term use of more than 50 US military bases in Iraq; immunity from Iraqi law for US troops and contractors, and a free hand to carry out arrests and conduct military operations inside Iraq without consultation of the Iraqi government. Even US total control over Iraqi airspace was deemed a very real possibility, sparking fears that the US might either use Iraq as a base from which to attack Iran, or permit the Israelis to attack Iran via Iraqi airspace.
Iraqi officials, however, haven’t been quiescent and by contrast have quite forcefully complained that such plans would transform their country into an ‘American colony’ and sow the seeds of conflict inside Iraq and the broader Middle East for years to come. Former Iraqi Finance Minister, Ali Allawi has pointedly stated that the US-Iraqi agreement “raises serious alarm about its long-term significance for Iraq’s sovereignty and independence.”
Opposition has only grown over time as the envisioned content of the agreement has steadily drizzled downward and become know to the Iraqi public at large. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has also voiced his dissatisfaction with the current direction of talks, and even at one point stated with apparent candor that they were at a ‘dead end’. As a result much has been made in the western press of ‘Washington’s man, turning on his US-backers’.
Al-Maliki in early July made a further bold move much to the chagrin of Washington by declaring his government may soon consider a timetable for a US withdrawal of forces. “Today, we are looking at the necessity of terminating the foreign presence on Iraqi lands and restoring full sovereignty”.
Whether this is anything more than mere bluster and stratagem to shore up the short-term approval of Iraqi nationalists is not entirely clear. That Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari later opined, al-Maliki’s protestations were more a performance for the sake of strengthening the government’s negotiating position vis-à-vis the Americans, deftly rehashing the popular mood of disaffection with the talks. This for one makes the actual stance of the Iraqi government more nebulous and harder to espy.
It seems that al-Maliki’s frosty musings on SOFA and regurgitation of nationalist sentiment have elicited some minor concessions from the Americans. First of all, it has been reported that private contractors inside Iraq will cease to possess immunity and instead be subject to Iraqi law. This was of particular concern to many Iraqis who view the privately funded, armed mercenaries who are said to be equal in number to American military personnel inside Iraq, as careless, dangerous and unaccountable. The original demand of well-over 50 military bases is also reported to have been tempered into “the low dozens”.
The number of bases although important, by no means resolves the crux over who’ll in the final instance, exercise military control over Iraqi territory, airspace and territorial waters. The problem of Iraqi sovereignty will remain unresolved and continue to reside on shaky foundations.
The progress of negotiations is said to have become so fraught that President Bush was compelled to personally intervene and assure his Iraqi counterparts that SOFA wouldn’t undermine Iraqi sovereignty. Given the content of SOFA, little else, however, could be inferred and Iraqis are right to fear for their nation’s future independence since the treaty is tantamount to the US occupation’s legitimation for an indefinite period of time. Michael Schwartz, professor of sociology at Stony Brook University, wasn’t being facetious when he branded the Iraqi government “a government with no military, no territory”, it was a statement of fact.
Despite the official transfer of sovereignty on June 28, 2004, the extent of control wielded by the Iraqi government over security forces operating on its own territory has been highly questionable and SOFA endeavors to valorize such ambiguity in principle. Rather than the Iraqi state, it’s the occupying forces who in the final analysis issue military orders and objectives and possess a legitimate monopoly on violence.
In all seriousness it has become evident that Iraqis will not suffer any such deal lightly, nor play the role of feckless spectator. Earlier in the year it looked as if the views and input of Iraqis were redundant, but as opposition has mounted and the behemoth of Iraqi nationalism intermittently flares up, it’s become virtually impossible for Iraq’s politicians to be dismissive without fear of severe backlash. If the government chooses to accede to any such agreement we can surmise the remaining vestiges of its ‘legitimacy’ will go up in flames, even if it’s able to weather the storm with US military backing.
Iraq’s present leaders are caught between a rock and a hard place. Some commentators have argued it’s only the 150,000 or so American troops who have thus far prevented their overthrow and destruction, while at the same time their embrace of the US’s plans to turn Iraq into a de jure American protectorate will surely sound the death-knell for the al-Maliki government, isolated as it already is in the heavily fortified Green Zone.
Similarly, while the so-called Sons of Iraq sahwa (“Awakening”) movement, comprised of elements of the former Ba’athist regime, Salafist jihadists and Sunni sheikhs, has of late been relatively quiescent and even abetted US forces in combating al-Qaeda in Iraq; such support is tenuous and could dry up relatively quickly if the right circumstances were forthcoming. Surprisingly few have pointed out that the US is currently funding and arming one of Iraq’s biggest and most battle-worn militias.
A 90,000 man strong Sunni militia, with no guarantees of disbandment in the longer-term poses a worrisome question mark over the possibility of a return to sectarian hostilities. Some argue that General Petraeus has merely hit the pause button on intra-faith violence, while actually laying the ground for future violence on an hitherto unseen scale. Arab-Kurdish violence is also set to blow over the battle for Kirkuk. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Thomas Powers, puts the issue succinctly when he writes:
“At the beginning of the occupation a key goal of the Americans was to disband the militias. In creating the awakening councils, the United States has armed, paid, and in effect sponsored the largest Iraqi militia of them all…The surge, therefore, has not so much ended the sectarian strife as it has set the stage for a renewal of civil war at a higher level of violence.”
The “strategic alliance” could also embolden al-Qaeda in Iraq, since the continued presence of a foreign occupation would provide plenty of grist to the jihadist mill and its very own formidable propaganda machine.
Furthermore, Muqtada al-Sadr and his Shi’a militia, the Mahdi Army, the staunchly anti-American clergyman who has been relatively quiet of late as a result of a declared ceasefire in all likelihood will renew his efforts to antagonize occupation forces with alacrity and much popular backing once it becomes politically expedient to do so. Al-Sadr’s hostility to the agreement hasn’t been tamed or assuaged in the slightest. He has openly called for a national referendum, certain that Iraqi public opinion vehemently opposes the US occupation’s retrenchment. In September 2007, opinion polls found that 73% of the Shi’a held the presence of US troops in Iraq as exacerbating the security situation, and there is little evidence that such unequivocal opposition to an American military presence inside Iraq has since foundered.
Finally, Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, the most significant Shi’a religious figure inside Iraq, whose tolerance of the occupation has been on the wane since the occupation’s inception; declining from a position of relative quietism to a critical position vis-à-vis American hubris. SOFA could be the straw which breaks the camel’s back, transforming the Grand Ayatollah’s restrained criticism into untrammeled polemic. He has already been reported to have said on the one hand, that he’ll oppose any Iraq-US agreement that would jeopardize Iraqi sovereignty as long as he is alive, and also that any such agreement should be subject to a national referendum.
As a marja’ taqlid, or source of emulation, with an unrivalled following inside Iraq, he could issue a fatwa, decrying SOFA, leaving it stillborn and in profound need of re-evaluation. Since the beginnings of the occupation, al-Sistani has endeavored to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor Grand Ayatollah al-Khoei and eschew confrontation with the occupation forces, realizing that their alienation could only hurt the Shi’a, who by virtue of Iraq’s demography (they make up some 60% of the population) are bound to win in any popular elections.
The US, however, is using $50 billion held in the US Federal Reserve Bank to coerce the fledgling Baghdad government into accepting SOFA on American terms. Thus far the Iraqi government has stuck to its guns and refused to cave, but remains under severe pressure. As Cockburn has explained
“Iraq’s foreign reserves are currently protected by a presidential order giving them immunity from judicial attachment but the US side in the talks has suggested that if the UN mandate, under which the money is held, lapses and is not replaced by the new agreement, then Iraq’s funds would lose this immunity. The cost to Iraq of this happening would be the immediate loss of $20bn. The US is able to threaten Iraq with the loss of 40 per cent of its foreign exchange reserves because Iraq’s independence is still limited by the legacy of UN sanctions and restrictions imposed on Iraq since Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in the 1990s. This means that Iraq is still considered a threat to international security and stability under Chapter Seven of the UN charter. The US negotiators say the price of Iraq escaping Chapter Seven is to sign up to a new “strategic alliance” with the United States.”
The Bush administration has gone to the lengths of describing, what is a “treaty” by any other name as an “alliance”, so that they’re not compelled to submit it for congressional approval. Some Democrats have been searing in their criticism of this move, which they take as further evidence of this administration’s contempt for Congress and democratic institutions more generally. Though it’s still unclear what form a US-Iraqi “strategic alliance” will take, few possess any illusions as to whether it will eventually be pushed through. Iraqi politicians have said as much, stating that the treaty will be enacted into law in exchange for a few paltry concessions.
If public protest were to reach fever-pitch, or al-Sistani and al-Sadr, alongside prominent voices in the Sunni community were to vociferously urge the necessity for a referendum on the matter, the Iraqi government may well be forced to bow to public pressure. Though a distinct possibility, it is just that and as a result we should perhaps side with the more sober evaluations and conclude that despite massive public opposition the al-Maliki government with pass a more watered-down version of SOFA. And it’s in this respect that Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, may prove to be correct, American forces are destined to be in Mesopotamia for another 100 years.
