Iraq Cabinet Approves Security Agreement, US Out by End 2011
Asia, Diplomacy & Politics, Iraq conflict, Security & Surveillance
The Iraqi cabinet has approved a security deal with the US, governing the role of US forces in the country. According to the deal, the US will withdraw its soldiers from Iraqi streets sometime in 2009 and will withdraw entirely from Iraq by the end of 2011. The Associated Press has circulated a photo of Iraqi police dancing with a US soldier in apparent celebration of the withdrawal agreement.
The deal takes some pressure off President-elect Barack Obama, who had vowed to withdraw US troops ever since running for the Senate in 2004. He had proposed a timeline for withdrawal, designed to get troops out by 2008, and throughout the 2008 campaign had said he would remove troops within 16 months of taking office, if elected. Now, the Bush administration and the Iraqi govenrment of Nouri al-Maliki seem to have done his work for him, setting a timeline for withdrawal 35 months after he takes office.
Should Obama choose the politically cautious route, he would be saved from accusations of not following through by this standing agreement. Nevertheless, he may find himself pressured to remove the troops within the 16 months he had projected. The agreement, if passed by the full Iraqi parliament, will help provide for a “seamless” transition in the US leadership, taking this hot-button issue off the table and letting a new Pres. Obama better gauge “conditions on the ground”.
The agreement, as reported, contains some monumental changes in US-Iraq security policy, including. It will put US forces in Iraq under Iraqi government authority, requiring US forces to leave the streets of Iraq’s towns and villages by mid-2009. US forces will cede control of their bases to Iraq sometime in 2009, and the US military will be stripped of its authority to raid Iraqi homes, barring both an Iraqi judicial order and consent of the Iraqi government.
Hostility toward the US in Iraq, which guides some politicians’ positions, means that there is serious opposition to the measure in the Iraqi parliament, but the reality of the deal is that it would do more to empower the Iraqi government and ease Iraq out from under American control than any other viable proposal. Some Iraq war opponents welcome the deal as a significant step toward ending American involvement in Iraq, while others are pushing for a more aggressive timetable for withdrawal.