Political Intrigue In Iraq

In addition to Ted Kennedy, another major death in the world of politics will have major repercussions. Only this one's in Iraq.

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of Iraq's largest Shiite political party, died Wednesday, creating a leadership vacuum that could weaken the bloc ahead of the January parliamentary election.

Hakim, 59, died in Tehran, where he was being treated for lung cancer, his relatives and associates said.

Leaders of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq are expected to announce after Hakim's burial in Najaf this week that his son Ammar will become the new head of the party, Supreme Council officials said. However, Ammar al-Hakim, who is in his late 30s, is widely seen as too young and inexperienced to command all factions of the party, and could face a leadership challenge.

The White House offered a terse two-line condolence.

Before this happened, al-Hakim's Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and several other Shiite groups (including the Sadr movement) formed a new coalition for the January elections that excluded Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. This is a shocking development, considering how Maliki had been ruling Iraq and muscling out his Shiite competition, but the Shiite bloc must have felt safety in numbers. With al-Hakim's death, however, and one less credible figure atop the coalition, that faction could split, leading Maliki to be able to pull off a victory after all. However, he'd probably have to partner with Sunnis to do it, and the question becomes whether sectarian bonds will carry over into the voting booth for the majority of Iraqis.

Juan Cole discusses what the death of al-Hakim could mean for Iraqi politics:

After al-Hakim fell ill with cancer and began spending most of his time in Iran undergoing treatment, the UIA coalition fell apart. A rival of the Supreme Council, the Islamic Mission Party or Da'wa, grew in strength, benefiting from the vigorous leadership of Prime Minister Nuri al- Maliki (from spring 2006). Elements of the old Shiite coalition were put together again by other players this summer, with a new Iraqi National Alliance being announced just days ago. ISCI cleric and parliamentarian, Humam al-Hamudi, will chair the UIA coalition, succeeding al-Hakim. Al-Hamudi is known as a committed Shiite activist who played a major role in crafting Iraq's constitution [...]

Ash-Sharq al-Awsat (The Middle East) reports in Arabic that the future of the new Shiite coalition, the Iraqi National Alliance, is shaky now that its leader is dead. Other observers doubted that things would change much on the ground, since Abdul Aziz was already on extended medical leave and all the arrangements were undertaken by his office.

The death of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim emblazons a question mark over Iraqi politics going forward. Important parliamentary elections are scheduled for January, and al-Hakim is not there to lead his own coalition to the polls. His son Ammar is still inexperienced and relatively young. The foremost figure in ISCI outside the al-Hakim family is probably Iraqi vice president Adil Abdul Mahdi, who is widely viewed as a pragmatist rather than a party activist.

There's still lots of dealmaking left to be done, but al-Hakim's death probably strengthened Maliki's position at a time where it appeared he could get muscled out. Overall, talking political infighting is a far better discussion to have about Iraq than, well, fighting.

Iraq Still A Dangerous Place

Two major bombings in Iraq, among the biggest this year, show that stability in Iraq remains a long way off. The Iraqis reportedly captured Abu Omar al-Baghdadi today, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the important part of that would be that the Iraqis did the capturing. But the bombings today show that leaders can cycle in and out as long as the breadth of the insurgent movement remains. Unfortunately we have not seen the political reconciliation necessary to bring about real and lasting stability.

The selection of a critic of Nouri al-Maliki as the Speaker of Iraq's Parliament could perhaps lead to that reconciliation, as Maliki has little other choice to get his agenda passed. However, the last speaker was something of a critic as well. So the problems still stew. We need to remain on track in Iraq, because our leaving, and maybe only our leaving, will spur the kind of compromises needed to end the chaos once and for all.

Drip, Drip, Drip

The Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament has resigned over the al-Zaidi arrest.

Iraq's parliament speaker announced his resignation Wednesday after a parliamentary session descended into chaos as lawmakers argued about whether to free a journalist who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush.

The speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, has threatened to resign before and has been suspended for embarrassing the prime minister with erratic behavior.

On Wednesday, after arguments erupted among lawmakers over the fate of the journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi, the speaker said: "I have no honor leading this parliament and I announce my resignation."

al-Mashhadani is a Salafi elected on the Iraqi Accord Front list, a Sunni-led slate. So much for the idea that only Shiite Sadrists supported al-Zaidi.

Meanwhile, as rallies seeking al-Zaidi's release continue, he received a judge in his jail cell rather than a courtroom today, pleading guilty to the charges.

THE Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at United States President George W. Bush has appeared before a judge in his jail cell because he is too injured to appear in a courtroom, his brother says.

The al-Zaidi family went to Baghdad's Central Criminal Court expecting to attend a hearing, his brother, Dhargham, said.

He said the family was told that the investigative judge went to see al-Zaidi in jail, and to return in eight days, Associated Press has reported.

"That means my brother was severely beaten and they fear that his appearance could trigger anger at the court,'' Dhargham said.

The anger is already being triggered. This is very dangerous.

World Report

Happy that I appear to have dodged the Blogger problems going around the Internets today, why don't I throw down with a world report?

• Zimbabwe: Robert Mugabe's wickedness is finally starting to catch up with him. He is in serious trouble because of both a crippling cholera epidemic and a threatened revolt of the internal security forces. Mugabe has run the country into the ground, and sooner or later the runaway inflation and searing poverty was going to impact how Zimbabweans viewed their country. You can only push people so far, even ones who are frightened.

In a clear sign that President Mugabe's hold on his state security machinery is starting to crumble, his once-loyal soldiers ran amok across the capital on Monday after they failed to access their paltry wages in the cash-strapped banks. The unarmed soldiers fought with heavily-armed police and several were arrested.

It was the third outbreak of such violence since last Thursday. The sight of rampaging soldiers was then unprecedented. Army sources said an inquiry had already begun, with dozens facing courts martial. Unconfirmed reports say three of the 12 soldiers who took part in Thursday's riot have been killed.

This is a time when Morgan Tsvangirai should live up to the name of his political party and lead a movement for democratic change.

• Thailand: Everyone was wondering what the Thai king would say in reaction to mass protests and the removal of the country's leading political party by the judiciary. Turns out he called in sick. And the caretaker government has cancelled a Parliamentary session to select a new Prime Minister. That would be what you'd call "paralysis."

• Israel: This is a hopeful sign that Israelis are finally starting to deal with the irrational right-wing element in their midst:

Israeli soldiers and police stormed a disputed building in the biblical city of Hebron on Thursday, dragging out 250 young settlers in a raid meant to send a warning to Jewish extremists fighting to keep what they see as God-promised land.

But activists responded with a wave of attacks on Israeli forces and Palestinians in the West Bank, even as Israeli politicians and some settler leaders denounced them.

The attacks are troubling, but the united front from the government and law enforcement is great. Sooner or later, Israel is going to have to give Palestinians their own state to live without fear in exchange for peace. It's the only solution, and ridding these extremists is a big step forward.

• Iraq: The Iraqi Presidency Council has now approved the security pact calling for withdrawal within three years, which means that there's nobody else in the Iraqi government that needs to approve it. Conservatives can scream all they want that this means they "won the war," which in the face of continued bombings and deaths is laughable (400 civilians still die every month in Iraq, at a minimum), but the need to reconcile and work together toward stability without the crutch of a US presence is going to have to be the long-term goal now. At this point, we owe it to the Iraqi people to leave.

• Canada: Everybody get to know the word "prorogue." That's what Stephen Harper did today in a desperate attempt to save his Prime Ministerial position.

Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean has granted a request from Stephen Harper to suspend Parliament until late next month, a move that avoids a confidence vote set for Monday that could have toppled his minority government.

"Following my advice, the Governor General has agreed to prorogue Parliament," Harper said outside Rideau Hall after a 2½-hour meeting with Jean.

Harper would not reveal the content of the discussion, citing constitutional traditions, but he said the first order of business when Parliament resumes on Jan. 26 will be the presentation of the federal budget, to be delivered the following day.

"The economy is the priority now, and the public is very frustrated with the situation in Parliament. We're all responsible for that," Harper said in French.

Monday's no-confidence vote could have precipitated the rise of a proposed Liberal-NDP coalition, supported by the Bloc Québécois, or could have resulted in another election, depending on the Governor General's response.

So there's no government in Canada until January, buying Harper time to wage a PR campaign to keep his job. There isn't much of a precedent for this since the 1600s. Jeffrey Feldman has a pretty good explainer. The upside for the center-left coalition is that Harper's spending cuts, anti-union measures and elimination of public financing will be shelved along with the government.

Prop. Thamaaniyah

The Iraqi Parliament did pass the withdrawal agreement mandating the end of a US military presence in Iraq by the end of 2011, but Juan Cole notes that the Sunnis extracted a price for their support.

Of 275 members of parliament, 198 attended and 145 voted in favor. That means it barely passed from the point of view of an absolute majority, though it was a clear simple majority. Apparently the al-Maliki government bowed to Sunni Arab demands that the agreement be submitted to a national referendum, California-style. If that is true, it is possible that it could still be rejected by the Iraqi people. But al-Maliki got it through parliament by painting opponents as implicitly opposing a US withdrawal, and that campaign tactic may work with the general public, too.

I think such a tactic is more likely to work with skittish politicians than an Iraqi public which wants the occupying forces out, and knows that if they vote down the agreement the forces would have to leave immediately. The Sunnis demanded other concessions from the Shiite government in exchange for their votes, including the release of political prisoners and an end to Shiite suppression of the minority, and when those promises get predictably reneged, that would threaten the referendum's passage as well.

It is, however, interesting that the Shiites, Sunnis, politicians throughout the Parliament, and every individual Iraqi will have a chance to weigh in on this security agreement with the United States, yet basically one "decider" in this country is allowed to do so.

We are, however, a shining city on a hill, so that balances things out.

Iraq In Fragments

Hey, how's that status of forces agreement going in the Iraqi Parliamen-

A session of Iraq’s Parliament collapsed in chaos on Wednesday, as a discussion among lawmakers about a three-year security agreement with the Americans boiled over into shouting and physical confrontation [...]

In a departure from protocol, security guards were present in the room, both because of the tension and because several Iraqi government officials were in attendance to answer questions about the agreement. Hoshyar Zebari, the foreign affairs minister, said the guards were unarmed.

As soon as the session began, politicians in opposition to the pact stood up in the hall and volubly argued that the ratification process was unconstitutional because a law governing the passage of international agreements had not been approved. Supporters say such a law is unnecessary because Parliament has already ratified numerous agreements without one.

For the next two hours, the Parliament speaker, Mahmoud Mashhadani, lashed out at the objectors and refused their demands to change the Parliament agenda. He then invited Hassan al-Sneid, a Shiite lawmaker, to begin the second public reading of the agreement, a matter of parliamentary procedure.

As Mr. Sneid began reading, witnesses said, Sadrists and other opponents of the agreement continued to trade shouts with lawmakers who supported it. Then, Ahmed Masu’udi, a Sadrist lawmaker, approached the dais. Mr. Masu’udi said later in an interview that he was simply trying to reach Mr. Mashhadani to persuade him to stop the reading; several other witnesses said Mr. Masu’udi tried to attack Mr. Sneid. The security guards rushed toward Mr. Masu’udi, who said that they grabbed him and struggled to push him away. At that point, witnesses said, the hall was filled with shouting, lawmakers rushed toward the front and the session ended in chaos.

Legislators poured out of the hall and into the cafeteria. There, shouting and accusations continued among the lawmakers, quickly attracting a company of security guards, who surrounded the cafeteria and tried to keep away the journalists and other onlookers who had gathered.

Well that sounds healthy! Good thing we won't have anything like that in this country, because the Bush Administration has decided that the agreement needs no Congressional approval and won't even release the text of the agreement, although it has been made available in Iraq and translated into American newspapers. By the way, a perusal of the withdrawal language in the agreement yields very little in the way of loopholes:

Admitting to the performance of Iraqi forces, their increased capabilities and assuming full responsibility for security and based upon the strong relationship between the two parties the two parties agreed to the following:

All U.S. forces are to withdraw from all Iraqi territory, water and airspace no later than the 31st of December of 2011.

All U.S. combat forces are to withdraw from Iraqi cities, villages, and towns not later than the date that Iraqi forces assume complete responsibility of security in any Iraqi province. The withdrawal of U.S. forces from the above-mentioned places is on a date no later than the 30 June 2009. The withdrawing U.S. forces mentioned in item (2) above are to gather in the installations and areas agreed upon that are located outside of cities, villages and towns that will be determined by the Joint Military Operation Coordinating Committee (JMOCC) before the date determined in item (2) above.

The United States admits to the sovereign right of the Iraqi government to demand the departure of the U.S. forces from Iraq at anytime. The Iraqi government admits to the sovereign right of the United States to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq at anytime.

The two parties agree to put a mechanism and preparations for reducing the number of U.S. forces during the appointed period. And they are to agree on the locations where the forces are to settle.

The issue in Iraq is that the Sadrists consider three years to be too long. But there's no question that all troops would have to leave Iraq by the timeline in this agreement if it's signed.

The reason that Prime Minister Maliki wants a three-year window is that it gives him time to build up his personal militia while using the US military as a proxy force in the interim. This is essentially an agreement to keep Maliki on as a strongman, which is why our drawdown should be accelerated to force reconciliation.

And finally, here's the conservative argument about Iraq these days, which is wholly out of touch with reality or relevancy:

Thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions in taxpayer funds have been expended to provide Iraqis the opportunity to live freely. And this despite the facts that (a) the U.S. interest in Iraqi democracy remains tenuous (our interest was the elimination of Saddam’s terror-mongering, weapons-proliferating regime), and (b) Americans were assured, when the nation-building enterprise commenced, that oil-rich Iraq would underwrite our sacrifices on its behalf. Yet, to be blunt, the Iraqis remain ingrates. That stubborn fact complicates everything.

How dare they not be thrilled about the deaths of 500,000 of their citizens, destruction of all their major cities, and internal displacement of maybe four million. Don't they know how WE feel?

Conservatives really do make a virtue of selfishness. It's appalling.

Change In the SOFA

The Iraqi Cabinet approved the security pact that they are calling a "withdrawal pact," which has a firm deadline for US troops to leave the major cities by next summer and all of Iraq by the end of 2011.

Parliament's deputy speaker, Khalid al-Attiyah, said he expected the 275-member legislature to begin debating the document this week and vote on it by Nov. 24.

The U.S. government agreed last week to an Iraqi request to amend the draft. The amendment removed what al-Attiyah said was ambiguous language that could allow U.S. forces not to adhere to a timeline for their withdrawal from Iraqi cities by the end of June and from the entire country by Jan. 1, 2012.

The Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni parties making up Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government dominate parliament, so there is a good chance that the legislature will approve the security pact.

The final draft of the agreement is designed to meet Iraqi concerns over its sovereignty and its security needs as it continues to grapple with a diminished but persistent insurgency.

It provides for the departure of U.S. forces from Iraq by the end of 2011 and gives Iraq the right to try U.S. soldiers and defense contractors in the case of serious crimes committed off-duty and off-base. It also prohibits the U.S. from using Iraqi territory to attack Iraq's neighbors, like Syria and Iran.

What I hope is that the nearing withdrawal date will force the Iraqis to come to terms with the rifts in their society. Baghdad and its environs remain violent, and the way in which Prime Minister Maliki is trying to muscle out the Sunnis from any power in the government is bound to cause a conflagration. When the US leaves - and Obama should stick to his 16-month vision, getting all combat troops out by mid-2010 and the residual forces by the confines of this agreement - Maliki will not be able to rely on a foreign military as a crutch. So the urgent need in the interim is a diplomatic agenda to reconcile the competing factions.

Juan Cole has more. Muqtada al-Sadr is opposing the pact, but his movement is somewhat less relevant these days. Even Iran is backing off and allowing this agreement to play out.

I agree in part with Kevin Drum, this is fairly good news all around - particularly the fact that Bush will be the one signing the agreement, and thus the cries from the right of "surrender" will be that much harder to make (though they'll still make them). I wouldn't go so far to say that Iraq is "off Obama's plate," as there's still much work to be done. But this is helpful.

The Perils Of Actual Negotiation

This is getting kind of ugly. This Administration doesn't really have a model for negotiating with a partner that won't give them everything they want. The Iraqis can't sign this SOFA agreement.

BAGHDAD, Oct. 21 -- The Iraqi cabinet called Tuesday for reopening negotiations over a draft agreement to keep U.S. forces in this country beyond 2008, but U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates immediately expressed "great reluctance" about more talks.

The apparent stalemate comes just 10 weeks before the expiration of the United Nations mandate that authorizes the presence of the 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Without a new legal agreement, "we basically stop doing anything" in the country, Gates told news service reporters in Washington [...]

U.S. and Iraqi negotiators have labored for seven months on the status-of-forces agreement. It would extend the American troop presence until the end of 2011 and give Iraqis more control over military operations here. But the accord was immediately criticized as an undermining of Iraqi sovereignty in this strongly nationalist country. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has not spoken publicly in support of it and has told colleagues it needs changes, officials say.

The most serious public challenge to the agreement emerged Tuesday in a meeting of the Iraqi cabinet. The ministers "unanimously agreed that there are necessary amendments which need to be made . . . to raise the agreement to a nationally acceptable level," according to a statement by government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh. The statement did not specify what changes were sought. But one of the participants in the meeting said in an interview that Maliki himself told the cabinet that the accord did not pass muster.

"He made observations on the need for further changes, because he wants to market it" publicly, the participant said. He added that the prime minister said the accord "would be difficult, as it stands, to pass through parliament."

As said above, Gates is shutting the door on further concessions. There's actually a leaked copy of the agreement floating around, and it's a slippery document which contradicts itself in places. There was some question about legal jurisdiction, so I want to reproduce that part of it:

1­ The U.S. has the primary legal jurisdiction over U.S. armed forces members and civilian members concerning issues that occur inside the installations and areas agreed upon, and while they are on duty outside t he installations and areas agreed upon, and in all conditions not mentioned in paragraph 2.

2­ Iraq has the primary legal jurisdict ion over armed forces members and civilian members in cases of major and intent ional crimes ment ioned in paragraph 8 that takes place outside areas and installat ions agreed upon while troops are off duty.

3­ Iraq has the primary legal jurisdiction over contractors with the U.S. and their employees [...]

6­ Both sides have the right to ask the ot her side to waive their primary legal jurisdiction over a specific case. Due to the exceptional importance of exercising such jurisdictions, the Iraqi government agrees to exercise its judicial jurisdict ions in accordance to paragraph 2 only after it informs the U.S. in writ ing within 21 days of the discovery of the alleged crime.

It's seldom that US forces are both away from bases and off-duty, so that's meaningless. However, the contractor jurisdiction is pretty airtight. However however, the jurisdiction can be waived and Iraq has to assert the legal right. The whole document is like this.

As to the withdrawal, it does look like the US has to leave by the end of 2011 at the latest (it can be earlier) unless the Iraqi government asks them to stay, which I can't see them doing because it would be like signing a death warrant, at least at this juncture.

But keep in mind, the Iraqis consider this to be a raw deal. Maliki's coalition partners oppose it. They're asking for more concessions. And the Administration has no experience with anyone saying "No" to them and meaning it, so I think we're at an impasse.

Juan Cole notes that the UN mandate can easily be renewed. That the Administration isn't going that route suggests that the SOFA agreement is a kind of malware, something they can use to keep permanent bases or raid Iraqi oil.

The agreement likely cannot pass parliament. If it does pass, it is unlikely to pass by January 1, when the old UN mandate for the Multi-National Forces in Iraq runs out. Without such a mandate or a bilateral agreement, US troops in Iraq could be tried for war crimes even for ordinary military operations. If Iraq did go back to the UN for an extension of its mandate, it turns out that Russia would support an extension. Some observers, including Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, had wondered whether the US reaction to the Georgia police action had so soured Russia on Washington that Moscow would play spoiler on the UNSC with regard to Iraq. Not so, apparently.

Incredible. In this case, Bush going down to the wire looking for an agreement has the potential to get American troops tried for war crimes, when he could have easily extended the mandate and passed this mess on to the next President. As long as there's a fork in the road, this President will take the one with the giant bear in the middle of it.

No SOFA?

If George Bush seems more panicked than usual, it may not be because of the financial crisis, which he's outsourced to the Treasury Department anyway. It's probably because he might have to end his great and glorious adventure in Iraq:

With time running out for the conclusion of an agreement governing American forces in Iraq, nervous negotiators have begun examining alternatives that would allow U.S. troops to stay beyond the Dec. 31 deadline, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.

Neither side finds the options attractive. One possibility is an extension of the United Nations mandate that expires at the end of the year. That would require a Security Council vote that both governments believe could be complicated by Russia or others opposed to the U.S.-led war. Another alternative would amount to a simple handshake agreement between Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and President Bush to leave things as they are until a new deal, under a new U.S. administration, can be negotiated.

Negotiators have been stuck for months on the question of legal jurisdiction over U.S. troops and immunity for possible crimes. But even if the sides reach a deal in the next few days or weeks, it is not clear that a formal status-of-forces agreement could be approved by the end of the year. Maliki has pledged to submit an accord to Iraq's divided parliament before he signs it -- a promise he reaffirmed last week during a visit to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric. Sistani has said he will not endorse any document without the support of Iraq's population and political factions.

There's no way it'll get finished - the original timeline was that it would have to be signed in July for it to work its way through the Iraqi Parliament, and even that was ambitious. There's not going to be any SOFA, and the negotiations will be left to the next President.

This is a manifestly good thing. Even though Bush was getting twisted in the direction of a withdrawal timeline, the details were sketchy and it was still put far into the future. This way the next President can implement what he's running on. And it's clear that the sectarian violence at the root of the security problems still exist, because the influx of troops have merely papered over the core challenges. Christians are being massacred in Mosul, and those five million who have been internally displaced face chaos upon return. The country can only function under ethnic separation and martial law, which means that meaningful reconciliation has not taken place. Until the crutch of American occupation is removed this process will not take place.

Meanwhile In Iraq

With less than 60 days to the election, it's easy to get caught up in the back and forth of politics. But the very serious developments in Iraq require some scrutiny.

First of all, the President made his big announcement - 8,000 troops will leave Iraq after he's out of office, with a few thousand re-routed to Afghanistan. He's calling this "return on success" but it's really just kick the can. Bush's advisors seem to understand that the need for a strategic redeployment out of Iraq is palpable, but he can't bring himself to pull the trigger. So the next President has to work out the mess he created, which was really the plan all along.

Let's be clear where we are in Iraq. Violence is down but not out; just today brought news of a pretty horrific car bombing in Dujail. The political factions are still at an impasse, with tensions growing, and Nouri al-Maliki is trying to rub out his rivals and use the leverage of the US troop presence to make it easier. The troop drawdown is so minimal because, under the current strategy, the security gains are fragile because the political reconciliation has not been managed hardly at all. But that's only because the strategy is deeply wrong, concerned only with keeping a lid on violence for political purposes. Barack Obama gets this right.

"His plan comes up short — it is not enough troops, not enough resources, with not enough urgency," Obama said. "The next president will inherit a status quo that is still unstable."

We have, to an extent, coddled the Iraqi government, which says in public that the occupiers must be driven out but says in private that the troops must stay. There are still major political gaps that we're filling in with military force, which is simply untenable.

1. Centralizers vs. de-centralizers. Some Iraqi factions want to see more power placed in the hands of the national government, while others continue to push for more power to be vested in local and provincial governments.

2. State power holders vs. popular challengers. Certain factions have disproportionately benefited from the national government’s spoils, such as Dawa, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, and the Kurdish factions who are part of national government. Some factions that have not benefited from the national government’s increased oil wealth and military power have stronger support in key areas of Iraq such as the Sons of Iraq in central and western Iraq and the Sadrists in central and southern Iraq.

3. Sunni vs. Shia. Sectarian conflicts are much reduced since high levels of violence in 2006, but the Sunni-Shia sectarian strain endures.

4. Arab vs. Kurds. The Arab-Kurd division is coming to a head in the unresolved crisis over the status of Kirkuk and other disputed territories.

5. Religious factions vs. secular factions. Latent tensions remain between Iraqis who are concerned by the religious nature of Iraqi politics versus those who see politics as one facet of advancing enduring religious principles of either Sunni or Shia Islam. Religious minorities such as Christians and Yazidis have suffered from persecution at the hands of other groups in Iraq since 2003.

These are major conflicts that have yet to be resolved, and they won't be with a purely military solution. Iraqis have simply not been responsible for their own sovereignty when they are "under the umbrella" of a US occupation. Only the Iraqis can make these decisions, and our presence makes that decision-making process remote. This is a key point:

The U.S. military presence in Iraq is not politically neutral. It creates a distinct set of incentives for political actors that directly work against the reconciliation that U.S. diplomats try to promote. U.S. military dominance and support absolves the major political actors from having to make the tough decisions necessary to achieve a power-sharing equilibrium.

In the months ahead in Iraq, the United States will have to distinguish between those outcomes that are truly catastrophic and those that are simply suboptimal given the limits on U.S. leverage over Iraqi actors—leverage that declines each day as the Iraqi government becomes financially self-sufficient and more assertive. Iraq’s leaders over the next year will increasingly demand greater control over their own affairs. The United States needs to rebalance its overall national security approach by stepping outside of the trenches of intra-Iraqi disputes over power and putting the focus back on its core national security interests.

General Petraeus says that he cannot declare victory, but this just serves to put our eventual withdrawal at a constant arm's length. Before declaring it, he and his Republican cheerleaders ought to define it:

WARE: Winning, however, is a matter of definition. Now, if by winning, you mean strengthening a member of what President Bush called the axis of evil, Iran, the very thing Senator Obama -- Senator McCain says that they prevented, Iran is stronger because of this war.

If you mean by dividing a community with blast barriers, if you mean by having to build an American militia, if you mean by destabilizing the entire region, then, sure, that's winning, that's victory. But I'm not sure that's why people went in there.

BROWN: It doesn't sound like you think that's winning.

WARE: Well, at this point, a win may just be getting out while minimizing the damage.

We aren't facing the facts in Iraq. We praise the fine work of our soldiers and point to charts of body counts and think that stability will just spontaneously sprout. It's damaging the long-term success of the region. A careful withdrawal along with a surge in diplomacy is the only solution.

Calling Their Bluff

Somehow, the reporting on this has been very thin, but it's extremely significant that the Iraqi government is gradually but insistently extracting the concession of a firm timeline for withdrawal from Iraq in ways that the Democratic Congress never has.

Iraq's foreign minister insisted Sunday that any security deal with the United States must contain a "very clear timeline" for the departure of U.S. troops. A suicide bomber struck north of Baghdad, killing at least five people including an American soldier.

Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told reporters that American and Iraqi negotiators were "very close" to reaching a long-term security agreement that will set the rules for U.S. troops in Iraq after the U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.

Zebari said the Iraqis were insisting that the agreement include a "very clear timeline" for the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces, but he refused to talk about specific dates.

Yes, it's conditions-based, and who becomes the next President matters as to its implementation. But the Iraqis have taken a page from George Bush's playbook to force this concession - move toward a deadline and stubbornly refuse to concede. There were about 3 or 4 points where Democrats could have achieved the same thing, but their will never held out beyond a couple days.

There are still pitfalls in Iraq that could alter any timetable, of course. Suicide bombings continue and the military operations designed to root out insurgents are still telegraphed to allow them to slip away. The collapse of the provincial elections law is very disturbing, particularly because those in Iraq's greatest trouble spots are growing increasingly angered.

The anger among the Awakenings movements is already palpable. The New York Times quotes Ali Hatem Suleiman saying that “We are running out of patience,” and Sheik Hamid al-Hayis saying “This is a slap on the face of Iraq... we couldn’t make a big change in the government structure. That pushed us to work to make change in the provincial council. But even that we can’t touch.” Dr. iRack, just back from Iraq, reports that the notoriously outspoken Ali Hatem "is deadly serious about returning to war against all the Islamic parties (Sunni and Shia) if the Awakening groups are not given the power they think they deserve." That fits what I've heard from others less prone to hyperbole.

Leaders of the Awakenings have been warning that they are "losing patience" and "the next few months will be decisive" so many times that I suspect some people have stopped taking them seriously [...] We are potentially approaching a moment of truth. The consequences of building up these forces outside of the structures of the Iraqi state, while stringing them along with promises that require Iraqi government acquiesence to deliver may be coming due. I know well that US military commanders have been far more attentive to these issues than have the cheerleaders, and MNF-I and Ambassador Crocker have been working as hard as they can to resolve them. Their failure to deliver a compromise on the provincial elections law and their failure to deliver meaningful progress on SOI integration both suggest the limits of American influence in Iraq - a lesson which the advocates of "strategic patience", who continue to view American decisions as the only ones which really matter, never seem to digest.

The Awakenings groups continue to be denied entry into the larger Iraqi security forces, which as we learned in the NYT today is where most of the jobs are in the country, on the government rolls. The provincial elections would have provided them some representation in the Parliament, and yet should they ever go through it would spell full-scale armed conflict in Kirkuk. There are also intra-Shiite battles that have not been extinguished. Because the root causes of the violence in Iraq have not been addressed, the potential for chaos always exists. And of course there are limits to the pressure that the US military can put on this situation.

And yet, the surge supporters are a victim of their own cheerleading. Their perception of success has led to the Iraqi Shiite ruling party believing they can pummel any challenges to their power and bribe the rest, so they feel free making the move to call for a withdrawal. They've caught Bush and Cheney in a real bind - you can only walk the tightrope between "we're winning" and "it'll all go to hell if we leave" for so long. In addition, that American-centric view of the state of play in Iraq is deeply misguided. We've set events in motion that we now will find difficult to control.

Iraq In Fragments

Because some of us are still paying attention.

• First the really good news: this report in the Guardian that Muqtada al-Sadr is going to urge his forces to completely disarm, and transform the organization into a political and social movement. This would be the greatest hope for stability in Iraq, although the final outcome may end up with Sadr in power. It seems to me that this shift goes hand-in-hand with this report that a tentative deal has been reached with the US on a status of forces agreement that would set a timeline of withdrawal of US forces from Iraq by 2010 or 2011, provided that conditions remain the same on the ground. Sadr's Mahdi Army had a goal of driving the Americans from the country, and with that on its way to being achieved, he is free to change his movement into one that is expressly political.

• When those political skills will be able to be used is unclear, as the Iraqi Parliament adjourned without agreement on a provincial election law, which pushes the next round of elections into next year, in all likelihood. This means that the politics is still at a complete gridlock in the country, with looming explosions like Kirkuk still unsettled. So the good news always comes with the uncertain and potentially catastrophic in Iraq.

• Parliament did provide $21 billion dollars in supplemental reconstruction funding for the country. However, that's just a portion of the projected $79 billion budget surplus that has resulted from oil revenues in Iraq (how sad that Iraq's economic future is brighter than our own?). I believe that we owe it to the Iraqi people to rebuild their country, but at the same time these surpluses in a government that has a poor track record on corruption invites concern.

• Back to the deal on a withdrawal timetable, which has not been announced in the US press, it's a complete contradiction of George Bush, who said this just yesterday:

"I talk to him all the time, and that's not what I heard," Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post aboard Air Force One on the start of a trip to Asia. "I heard a man who wants to work with the United States to come up with a rational way to have the United States withdraw combat troops depending upon conditions on the ground, that's all."

That rational way happens to be a timetable remarkably similar to Sen. Obama's, and Bush apparently just signed onto it as well. Also in this reported deal, the US military cannot arrest Iraqis without government approval.

• A very strange argument was put forth by the axis of Pollack/O'Hanlon yesterday, that ethnic cleansing was not the chief cause of the reduction in violence in Baghdad, because casualties went up there in 2006. Yeah, that's what they call ethnic cleansing, guys. Meanwhile, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad visited Baghdad and cites the giant prison cell-like walls as a chief cause of security gains.

What I found contradicts all the official reports: Baghdad is a city where one street is at war with the next, where the people are more desperate than I've ever seen them. It has been transformed into a city of walls. There are twenty miles of walls slicing up the Sunni and Shia ghettos, each wall over 12 feet high. They are the main reason why the casualties have fallen, not because peace is on its way. In Adhamiyah, I meet a member of the Sunni militia, and he tells me, “I cannot move behind that square over there. If I did, I would be killed. It's a prison here.”

• Finally, there's no KFC in Fallujah. That I had to write a sentence that dippy just shows the complete dishonesty from the right wing about anything in Iraq.

Progress Waits... Again

With all the talk of withdrawal and whether the surge worked, maybe somebody could take a look at the political progress that neocons claim the Iraqis are making?

Iraq's parliament passed legislation Tuesday setting new rules for provincial elections, a step widely viewed here as critical to the country's process of political reconciliation.

But Kurdish lawmakers boycotted the vote over the status of Kirkuk, an oil-rich, ethnically mixed city that Kurdish leaders believe should come under the control of their autonomous regional government in northern Iraq. The move could undermine the legislation and delay the provincial elections, which had been expected this fall.

The Kurds vowed they'd boycott the vote if it was done by secret ballot, which the Sunni Speaker of the House proceeded to do, leading to a Kurdish walkout and an expected veto by Jalal Talabani, the President of Iraq (who happens to be Kurdish).

Given all this, there is no way provincial elections carry off in October, meaning that Sunnis will still have weakened representation in the Parliament through the rest of the year. They keep delaying and delaying the status of Kirkuk because everyone knows a solution will lead to bloodshed. To consign the Kurds in Kirkuk to essentially the same forces who repressed them under Saddam will be unacceptable. And Arabs who want to limit Kurdish influence want Kirkuk in their hands, largely due to the oil resources. It's untenable.

The point is that this vaunted political progress never actually gets to a point of conclusion, and Iraq muddles through, relying on US military to keep the tense situation under control. I would argue that an end date for removal of forces would actually force them to confront these difficult issues instead of the constant delay.

UPDATE: Ugh, from Marc Lynch:

Keep an eye on the special meeting of the Kurdish Parliament called for today over Kurdish outrage over the Kirkuk provisions in the just-passed provincial elections law, which Kurdish leadership is calling a "coup against the Constitution." The Kurdish bloc is calling for a re-vote, which might make sense but would be of dubious legality. Some (overly excitable?) Arab and Iraqi reports suggest that in addition to Talabani vetoing the provincial election law (over which the Kurds walked out of Parliament) the Kurds could pull out of Maliki's government and potentially even bring it down. Wouldn't it be wild if the estimably pro-US Kurds, the biggest fans of a long-term American military presence, bring down Maliki at the height of his perceived power immediately after he expressed support for the removal of US troops by 2010... over a seemingly entirely unrelated issue?

Yikes.

SOFA Taken To The Trash Heap

Over the weekend, US negotiators in Iraq signaled that they would not be able to reach a long-term status of forces agreement for what amounts to a permanent occupation of the country, because the entire Iraqi political establishment has been demanding a timetable for withdrawal. While the Iraqis are most likely wanting political cover for signing the agreement by offering their constituents the possibility of a life without US troops, and the need for withdrawal appeared more rhetorical than actual, regardless of the reasoning they held to that commitment and stared down Bush. It'd be nice if the loyal opposition here at home could learn the lesson.

But let's be clear. These aren't exactly fixed dates for the return of US forces:

Unlike the status-of-forces agreements between the United States and countries such as South Korea and Japan, where large numbers of U.S. troops have been based for decades, the document now under discussion with Iraq is likely to cover only 2009. Negotiators expect it to include a "time horizon," with specific goals for U.S. troop withdrawal from Baghdad and other cities and installations such as the former Saddam Hussein palace that now houses the U.S. Embassy.

The fixed dates will likely include caveats referring to the ability of Iraqi security forces to take over from U.S. units, but without them, U.S. negotiators concluded that Iraqi acquiescence was doubtful. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his political allies have come under intense domestic pressure to reject any perceived infringement on Iraqi sovereignty. Maliki, who last week publicly insisted on a withdrawal timeline, wants to frame the agreement as outlining the terms for "Americans leaving Iraq" rather than the conditions under which they will stay, said the U.S. official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because U.S.-Iraqi negotiations are ongoing.

The idea, he said, is to "take the heat off [Maliki] a little bit, to rebrand the thing and counter the narrative that he's negotiating for a permanent military presence in Iraq."

Goals, hopes, targets, with domestic Iraqi politics firmly in mind.

Still, this is significant. Bush tried to steamroll the Iraqis and failed, and now the next President will determine the course of action. As Dr. Irack notes, this is because the Bushies used the same unilateral approach that's allowed them to plow through domestic opponents, but it didn't work in Iraq:

Because talks were not occurring against the backdrop of negotiating a U.S. withdrawal and a clear signal that we did not want to have the rights and prerogatives to stay in Iraq indefinitely, two things happened:

1. Iraqi sovereignty and nationalist anxieties were exacerbated by the perception that we were negotiating a permanent occupation (regardless of how many times the administration asserted it wasn't seeking permanent bases). This made it difficult for Iraqi officials--including those that wanted a long-term agreement negotiated under Bush--to sign on to anything.

2. U.S. negotiators framed the whole thing to the Iraqis as us wanting to negotiate a way to stay in Iraq. This reversed the leverage in negotiations, making us appear increasingly desperate to give the Iraqis concessions so we could stick around indefinitely. This made it look like we needed them more than they needed us, which is completely back-ass-ward.

They couldn't hide their desire to stay in Iraq forever enough to make it politically possible for the Iraqis to sign on. This is the usual hubris. But it also has implications for the next President. Because, since a long-term agreement will be negotiated in the future, whoever implements the policy can take it in one of two radically different directions. John McCain has made no secret of his long-term desires to keep a significant American presence in Iraq. Barack Obama wrote an op-ed today outlining his different goals.

The call by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq presents an enormous opportunity. We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States [...]

Only by redeploying our troops can we press the Iraqis to reach comprehensive political accommodation and achieve a successful transition to Iraqis’ taking responsibility for the security and stability of their country. Instead of seizing the moment and encouraging Iraqis to step up, the Bush administration and Senator McCain are refusing to embrace this transition — despite their previous commitments to respect the will of Iraq’s sovereign government. They call any timetable for the removal of American troops “surrender,” even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government.

But this is not a strategy for success — it is a strategy for staying that runs contrary to the will of the Iraqi people, the American people and the security interests of the United States. That is why, on my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war [...]

In this campaign, there are honest differences over Iraq, and we should discuss them with the thoroughness they deserve. Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea, and would redeploy our troops out of Iraq and focus on the broader security challenges that we face. But for far too long, those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy have ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender.

It’s not going to work this time. It’s time to end this war.

In response, the McCain campaign has ... accused Obama of surrender. So it goes.

Some Context For The Iraq Timetable Remarks

Now that Iraq's national security adviser has joined the Prime Minister in calling for the US-Iraq status of forces agreement to include a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops, it's time to place these remarks in context.

Nouri al-Maliki is trying to win an election. He wants to outflank the Sadrists who have been resisting the US occupation for some time. There have been massive demonstrations among the Shiite community to drive the occupiers out. It's significant that the NSA, Mouwaffak al-Rubaie, made his comments in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, and after discussions with the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, no less.

But the actual withdrawal proposal put forth by Maliki and the Iraqi government is far less than it seems.

The Iraqi proposal stipulates that, once Iraqi forces have resumed security responsibility in all 18 of Iraq's provinces, U.S.-led forces would then withdraw from all cities in the country.

After that, the country's security situation would be reviewed every six months, for three to five years, to decide when U.S.-led troops would pull out entirely, al-Adeeb said.

The proposal, as outlined by al-Adeeb, is phrased in a way that would allow Iraqi officials to tell the Iraqi public that it includes a specific timetable and dates for a U.S. withdrawal.

However, it also would provide the United States some flexibility on timing because the dates of the provincial handovers are not set.

That's the key. This is a positioning document for al-Maliki, who wants to consolidate control in provincial elections. He's trying to prove that his rule has been successful and that he is not a puppet to the Americans. The other day he said that terrorism has been defeated in Iraq - it was his "Mission Accomplished" statement - as proof that he has been able to increase security all by himself.

The practical effect of the agreement described above is negligible. We've only handed over security responsibility in 9 of the 18 provinces to date. There's enough flexibility in this statement to hold off withdrawing all combat troops for potentially up to a decade. And 10 years is a long time and lots of things can change. This is an election-year "peace is at hand" statement that Maliki can wave around to the Iraqi public.

I wouldn't be surprised if Bush jumped at it, actually. It's certainly a good deal for him - he gets to pretend to leave while locking in for a long-term arrangement. He helps Maliki consolidate power and break the back of the Sadrist movement. It perpetuates the myth that we aren't seeking permanent bases - there's nothing in the withdrawal document about after-action forces - and that Iraq has some form of soveriegnty.

So let's not kid ourselves - even with such an agreement in place it will be very important who is in the White House implementing the policy, which could result in a gradual withdrawal or no discernible change for decades. If Sen. Obama wanted to clear up confusion about his Iraq policy that the brain-dead media seeks to muddy, he could come out strongly endorsing this concept of a phased withdrawal and the right of the Iraqis to self-govern. And he could specifically explain that this document wouldn't necessarily do that, and that it would be up to the policymakers to determine the next course.

If A Tree Falls In Iraq, And No One Is There To Hear It...

This David Brooks op-ed and this analysis of network news coverage on Iraq and Afghanistan couldn't be more related. Brooks wants us to believe that the surge made everything all better in Iraq when anyone who's actually been paying attention knows that the drop in violence did nothing to bring the country together or reconcile the disparate factions, and we're essentially keeping our finger in the dike until we eventually must leave, without any idea what will happen afterwards. Now, even readers of the New York Times are not likely to know that, because Iraq has been blocked from our memories.

The three major US networks are only dedicating an average of 2 minutes per week to coverage of the war in Iraq according to the New York Times. The report is based on information gathered by a TD consultant who found that CBS evening news spent the least amount of time reporting on the Iraq war, followed by ABC world news and NBC nightly news, respectively.

Among the information not reaching US citizens is that there have been more than 1 million Iraqi deaths since the beginning of the 2003 US invasion, with anywhere from 600 000 to 1.2 million of them being violent. The underreporting of events in Iraq has also left US citizens largely unaware of the millions of Iraqi widows of war and 5 million displaced Iraqi citizens. Some direct blame at the Pentagon for the US public's ignorance of the large number of deaths, but Donald Rumsfeld defends the Department of Defense by insisting that they "don't do body counts on other people."

It isn't just Iraqis that are going unnoticed, however. The US news is even failing to report or show their own soldiers returning home in body bags. Lara Logan, a foreign correspondent for CBS news commented on this issue asking "who in America knows what [the body of a dead American soldier] looks like" and saying that "the American soldiers do feel forgotten."

Of course they feel forgotten - they ARE forgotten. And they've been used as political pawns by people like Brooks for over five years.

This idea that a drop in violence - but not a cessation, mind you, more Americans died just today and there are still upwards of 500 casualties a month, the equivalent of two 9-11s every single month, inside Iraq - takes the war out of the spotlight and allows Bush defenders and warmongers to claim victory is silly, especially because they keep Iraq in the sweet spot between "everything's dandy" and "if we leave there will be nothing but chaos." Those two positions are irreconcilable. There are a number of factors leading to the drop in violence, but an additional American presence is something that Howard Dean was calling for in 2003. And anyway, the larger point is that we're not creating an Iraq that is sustainable without that very large presence, which does not serve our national security in any way. As Matthew Duss puts it:

Leaving aside the fact that [the surge's] "victory" as Gerecht defines it, in addition to obviously representing a monumental climbdown from each and every one of the numerous justifications previously offered for the war, does not actually add up to "an Iraqi state" as much as to "a series of armed militia communities we're going to call Iraq," was this outcome really worth 4,000 American dead, over 28,000 wounded, and, by the end of 2008, some $600 billion in American treasure? Was it worth over half a million Iraqi dead, many times that maimed, and some 3 million displaced? Was it worth creating an open source laboratory for terrorists to develop and sharpen their tactics against the most technologically advanced military in the world, enabling them disseminate those tactics around the world via internet? Was it worth losing a thousand dollars at poker just to win twenty at blackjack?

This is reinforced by a GAO report released yesterday showing no long-term strategy for the war, outside of maintaining fragile security gains. This is a prelude to a long-term occupation but not the withdrawal we all know must come absent a military draft.

While agreeing with the administration that violence has decreased sharply, a report released yesterday by the Government Accountability Office concluded that many other goals Bush outlined a year and a half ago in the "New Way Forward" strategy remain unmet.

The report, after a bleak GAO assessment last summer, cited little improvement in the ability of the Iraqi security forces to act independently of the U.S. military, and noted that key legislation passed by the Iraqi parliament had not been implemented while other crucial laws had not been passed. The report also judged that key Iraqi ministries spent less of their allocated budgets last year than in previous years, and said that oil and electricity production had repeatedly not met U.S. targets.

Bush's strategy of January 2007, the GAO said, "defined the original goals and objectives that the Administration believed were achievable by the end of this phase in July 2008." Not meeting many of them changed circumstances on the ground and the pending withdrawal of the last of the additional U.S. forces mean that strategy is now outdated, the report said. The GAO recommends that the State and Defense departments work together to fashion a new approach.

But David Brooks wants to tell you that Bush was right, the surge is working, and will not address the larger concerns. And you'll never see this on the nightly news unless you're very lucky. You may hear something like commanders in Afghanistan lamenting the lack of equipment because of Iraq, but the context of how we have no national security goals in Iraq, but plenty in Afghanistan, and the imbalance is striking and completely perverse, will not get a hearing. Afghanistan CLEARLY needs more help. Attacks are up 40% in some regions, and more US troops died there than in Iraq last month. What Iraq needs more than anything is an exit strategy. The government is not functional, the state is not cohesive, and no amount of military referees policing, arming and funding all sides of a potential civil war is going to reconcile these facts.

Brooks creates a hermetically sealed open-and-shut case, but it's, for lack of a better word, an ignorant one. Which mirrors the public view of the war. Because the information, while not concealed, is not readily available. Less people dying is not a strategy for victory, and permanent occupations are not a cause for celebration.

Exit Strategy From Iraq Through Iran

This might expand to four in the wake of the Boumediene ruling, but basically there are only three agenda items left for the Bush Administration: get immunity from prosecution for themselves and their telecom partners for warrantless spying, secure a long-term status of forces agreement allowing for permanent bases inside Iraq and essentially a colonial presence, and bomb Iran's suspected nuclear facilities. All three of them are impeachable offenses, contravening major elements of the Constitution, be it the Fourth Amendment, Congress' power to advise and consent on bilateral treaties, or Congress' power to declare war.

And the last two are related.

The reason the White House is so hell-bent on signing a long-term agreement may have less to do with Iraq and more to do with Iran. According to press reports of the ongoing negotiations, the Bush administration is seeking the “power to determine if a hostile act from another country is aggression against Iraq.” Ali al Adeeb, a leading member of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Dawa party, confirmed:

The Americans insist so far that is they who define what is an aggression on Iraq and what is democracy inside Iraq…if we come under aggression we should define it and ask for help.

The administration’s request would seemingly allow the U.S. to brand Iran as an enemy of Iraq and attack Iran in the name of defending Iraq pursuant to a legal obligation under the status of forces agreement.

Iraqi leaders are resisting the status of forces agreement because they want to maintain their own sovereignty, but also because they don't want to become a staging ground for an attack on Iran, which would almost certainly result in an overthrow of the government and total chaos. It would also put thousands of our troops at risk.

We're seeing the same rhetoric used to hype up the Iraqi invasion (so much for regretting all that incendiary language), and the pressure from the warhawks inside the Administration has grown more intense, despite the conclusion of intelligence estimates that Iran's nuclear program is dormant. Just the very act of "keeping the military option on the table" in speeches damages diplomatic efforts. It emboldens the hardliners in Iran and raises tensions. Of course, that is probably the point. What's scariest is that the Administration's version of Roy Hobbs has come off the bench for a final trip at the plate.

David Addington, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, is winning on virtually every battle he is fighting -- from not moving forward on new legal protocols that would be more internationally palatable on combat detainee rights to shelving the Law of the Seas Treaty ratification. But they say that the level of tension in the White House over Iran is also growing -- and the diplomatic game plan that before was dominant seems to have deteriorated significantly -- particularly since the departure of former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs R. Nicholas Burns and the firing of Admiral William Fallon.

David Wurmser allegedly (though he does deny it) said that Vice President Cheney felt it important to "tie the President's hands" when it came to Iran and to generate an event that would undermine the diplomatic track -- the worry now is that the crowd in power is really talking about tying the next President's hands. . .tying perhaps Barack Obama's hands.

This really could be cooking -- and I think it's important for White House watchers to realize that the folks we thought had knocked back the neocons are themselves losing leverage again.

Generating that event is certainly what's at work in the status of forces agreement. One militia member who happens to have some tie to the Quds Force - there are certainly some - will be the impetus for attack.

That's why the group most likely to keep us out of a third Bush war right now is not the Democratic opposition, sadly, but the Iraqi government.

Secret Agreement is Not So Secret

Two big news stories out today regarding Iraq, one about the past and one about the future. The long-awaited release of the Phase II report showing that the Administration intentionally lied and deceived and misused intelligence in the run-up to the war comes off as kind of obvious, but I suppose it's nice to see in print. PDF's of the report are here:

"Report on Whether Public Statements Regarding Iraq by U.S. Government officials Were Substantiated by Intelligence Information"

"Report on Intelligence Activities Relating to Iraq Conducted by the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group and the Office of Special Plans Within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy"

Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.

Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.

Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.

Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.

The Secretary of Defense’s statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.

The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.

The other report, from Patrick Cockburn in The Independent, discusses the negotiations for a new status of forces agreement that would keep Iraq under indefinite occupation by the United States military.

A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country [...]

America currently has 151,000 troops in Iraq and, even after projected withdrawals next month, troop levels will stand at more than 142,000 – 10 000 more than when the military "surge" began in January 2007. Under the terms of the new treaty, the Americans would retain the long-term use of more than 50 bases in Iraq. American negotiators are also demanding immunity from Iraqi law for US troops and contractors, and a free hand to carry out arrests and conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting the Baghdad government.

The precise nature of the American demands has been kept secret until now. The leaks are certain to generate an angry backlash in Iraq. "It is a terrible breach of our sovereignty," said one Iraqi politician, adding that if the security deal was signed it would delegitimise the government in Baghdad which will be seen as an American pawn.

I respect Cockburn's journalism here, but I think he's a little bit behind the story. In fact, this is the American side of the story and their demands for what they want out of a security agreement, which as I mentioned a couple days ago is already well-known inside Iraq. In fact, in a fascinating session yesterday in front of a House Foreign Relations Subcommitte, two members of the Iraqi Parliament, one Sunni and one Shiite (a member of the Al-Fadhila Party (unaffiliated with Prime Minister Maliki or Muqtada al-Sadr) rejected the US-Iraqi arrangement, demanded a referendum on it from the Iraqi Parliament or the people, and explained to Congress that a timetable for withdrawal would end the violence plaguing the country. They rejected that the surge was in any way responsible for the drop in violence and attributed it to local control, and they insisted that an end to the occupation is the only way for reconciliation to take place.

This is completely in line with the majority of the Iraqi Parliament and the Iraqi people. In fact, Reuters is reporting that they are essentially demanding that we leave.

A majority of the Iraqi parliament has written to Congress rejecting a long-term security deal with Washington if it is not linked to a requirement that U.S. forces leave, a U.S. lawmaker said on Wednesday.

Rep. William Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat and Iraq war opponent, released excerpts from a letter he was handed by Iraqi parliamentarians laying down conditions for the security pact that the Bush administration seeks with Iraq.

The proposed pact has become increasingly controversial in Iraq, where there have been protests against it. It has also drawn criticism from Democrats on the presidential election campaign trail in the United States, who say President George W. Bush is trying to dictate war policy after he leaves office.

"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," the letter to the leaders of Congress said.

There is nothing "secret" about this "secret deal" from the standpoint of the Iraqis. They are well aware of it and committed to stopping its progress, protesting it and demanding it be put to a popular vote. Where the Independent article is valuable is if it can bring attention to this issue in the United States (God forbid it winds up in the American media - it's only the confirmation of the 100-year presence John McCain seeks). Members of Congress have already demanded that they be given the opportunity to ratify any agreement made between the US and Iraq. What they can do in addition is stand with the Iraqi people as the Bush Administration tries to bully the deal into place in Baghdad. The only ones doing the heavy lifting on ending the occupation right now are the Iraqis. And they're actually mobilizing almost all factions against this agreement. We can do the same here at home, and it's not enough to wait for a "referendum" on the war in November.

Duck And Cover

I've seen some blogger types viewing the development that Iran could be backing away from the Mahdi Army as good news. I'm not so sure. Sadr's strength is not that he is being propped up by Iran, it's that he is a nationalist with substantial popular support. In particular, the Mahdi Army's aid to displaced victims of the war has consolidated his strength. So I'd be very concerned about this unless the Qods force is going to now intervene on the side of the national government, which will provoke a regional response.

Anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr gave a "final warning" to the government Saturday to halt a U.S.-Iraqi crackdown against his followers or he would declare "open war until liberation."

A full-blown uprising by al-Sadr, who led two rebellions against U.S.-led forces in 2004, could lead to a dramatic increase in violence in Iraq at a time when the Sunni extremist group al-Qaida in Iraq appears poised for new attacks after suffering severe blows last year.

Note also that Sadr is currently holed up in Iran, and that Iran's ambassador to Baghdad, while praising the government's effort to curtail "lawbreakers" in Basra, also said that the current US/Iraqi efforts to seal off Sadr City "is a mistake."

This effort in Sadr City has the potential to be very bloody. We've already seen 300 or so Iraqis dead in less than a month, and if Sadr calls for open warfare it's bound to get worse. We're in the middle of an intra-Shiite conflict now, and it's hard to tell friend from foe. In many ways the Sadr City operation is a symbol of why we shouldn't have invaded. There's a complexity to the local situation on the ground that we still don't have a good feel for. Not to mention that we appear only able to clamp down on populations for so long.

Elsewhere in Iraq, at least five people died and 18 were injured in separate bombings in the northern cities of Mosul and Kirkuk and the Diyala provincial capital of Baqouba.

The attacks capped a violent week that has raised concerns that suspected Sunni insurgents are regrouping in the north. U.S. and Iraqi troops have stepped up security operations in Mosul, believed to be one of the last urban strongholds of al-Qaida in Iraq.

The war architects and the spinners are claiming some kind of political center that is taking hold in Iraq. First of all, the government is closest to Iran, so are they calling the Iranians centrists? Second, it's not to be trusted. This ceremony typifies the entire adventure.

A ceremony at which Rice unveiled a plaque commemorating civilian deaths in the Green Zone was briefly delayed during one of several "duck and cover" alerts for incoming rockets during her six-hour visit to the fortified compound housing the U.S. Embassy and much of the Iraqi government.

Duck and cover is right.

Yet Another Enemy In Iraq

So far in Iraq we've fought Saddam, the Fedayeen, the bitter-enders, the Mahdi Army, insurgents, Al Qaeda in Iraq, foreign fighters, and now we're apparently fighting Iran.

Last week's violence in Basra and Baghdad has convinced the Bush administration that actions by Iran, and not al-Qaeda, are the primary threat inside Iraq, and has sparked a broad reassessment of policy in the region, according to senior U.S. officials.

Evidence of an increase in Iranian weapons, training and direction for the Shiite militias that battled U.S. and Iraqi security forces in those two cities has fixed new U.S. attention on what Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates yesterday called Tehran's "malign" influence, the officials said.

The intensified focus on Iran coincides with diminished emphasis on al-Qaeda in Iraq as the leading justification for an ongoing U.S. military presence in Iraq.

"Justification" being the operative word.

You know, if you're going to suddenly be fighting Iran in Iraq, you might want to tell the Iraqi government that we allegedly support, since, you know, Iran is their biggest backer and all.

In a week that we learned that General Petraeus made secret diplomatic trips to various Middle Eastern countries (hey, thanks for doing your job, Secretary of State Rice!), and in a time when we know that nobody has greater sway over all sides of the intra-Shiite conflict in Iraq than Iran, who brokered the cease-fire in Basra, shouldn't the real answer be a surge of regional diplomacy including Iran? I mean, isn't that obvious?

But we're not doing that, of course. We're using Iran as an impetus to stay in Iraq, and supporting the political rub-out of Sadrist forces by lumping them in with Iran, despite the error of that belief. And it really looks to be taking place because we want to stay in Iraq forever.

We oppose Sadr because Sadr opposes the U.S. military presence in Iraq. Indeed, at times he opposes it through violent means that lead to the death of our troops. But "killing people who oppose the U.S. military presence in Iraq" isn't a reasonable rationale for the U.S. military presence in Iraq. This is what's led Joe Klein to speculate that the anti-Sadr tilt is driven by our quest for permanent military bases. Sadr is an opponent of what we're doing in Iraq, but he doesn't have some larger conflict with the United States -- he's not plotting an invasion of Delaware, he's willing to sell oil on an open market, etc. -- and while his credentials as a liberal democrat are highly suspect, so are those of the people we work with in Iraq (and Saudi Arab, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, etc.) all the time. That's not to say we should partner-up with Sadr or wish him particularly well in his adventures, but it's just to reiterate the point that we could easily afford to adopt a posture of indifference to Iraq's internal political disputes and just go home.

The fact that we're speedily negotiating security agreements with the Iraqi government also leads you directly to this conclusion. The goal is permanent bases and a nice presence to move along the safe dispensation of oil to multinational corporations. That's why we've gone back to an "open-ended commitment" in the country, and would certainly have the same in a John McCain Presidency. As Eugene Robinson said in the aftermath of the Petraeus hearings, the nation's only recourse is at the ballot box. But that doesn't mean Senate Democrats shouldn't be vigilant, stopping this SOFA agreement and dissuading a late attack on Iran as the mission creep moves eastward.