Well, as was quite predictable Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh has now trotted out new lines condemning Sunday’s raid in which US ground forces took off from (presumably) Iraqi territory on their heliborne extra-judicial execution mission in Sukkariyeh, in neighboring Syria.
The BBC tells us (link above) that after an Iraqi cabinet meeting today,
- government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh explicitly criticised the US over the reported helicopter strike.
“The Iraqi government rejects the US helicopter strike on Syrian territory, considering that Iraq’s constitution does not allow its land to be a base for launching attacks on neighbouring countries,” he said.
“We call upon American forces not to repeat such activities and Baghdad has launched an investigation into the strike.”
Yesterday, after Dabbagh was quoted as expressing some support for the extra-judicial execution raid, I noted that, “it is sometimes a little unclear who Dabbagh works for. In the past he has sometimes seemed to be a loyal mouth-piece for his Iraqi political bosses, and sometimes to be a bit of a cat’s-paw for the Americans.” Today, his Iraqi government masters have evidently jerked his chain.
Of more consequence than Dabbagh’s vacillations, however, is the fact that at that same cabinet meeting Iraq’s ministers were discussing the latest draft of the SOFA agreement sent along by the US: In the negotiation over this agreement the Iraqi side is still strongly insisting that any US forces on their territory should not be used to launch any operations against other countries that are not explicitly authorized by Baghdad.
The BBC report of the cabinet meeting said,
- Iraq’s cabinet authorised PM Nouri al-Maliki to put forward proposed changes to a security pact with the US.
A government spokesman said the suggested amendments, agreed at a cabinet meeting, addressed both the wording and the content of the Status of Forces Agreement.
… The US and Iraqi governments had previously said the pact, which would authorise the presence of US troops in Iraq until 2011, was final and could not be amended – only accepted or rejected by the Iraqi parliament.
Actually, I’m not sure the Iraqi government had previously said that. And evidently, if they– or perhaps the ever-dodgy Dabbagh claiming to speak in their name– did so, then now they have changed their mind.
Take that, Washington.
Also of note: Syria is no longer the international pariah it was earlier on this decade. Foreign Minister Walid Moallem has been in London, which wouldn’t have happened earlier on in the decade. Also, Syria has international allies who are weightier and more inclined to protect its interests than they were back then. (Russia is just one of these.)
Meanwhile, the Sukkariyeh raid has also attracted some notice in Iran, where some analysts have wondered whether the new US doctrine of “alleged hot pursuit” from inside Iraq could be applied across their border with Iraq, as easily as across Syria’s. Asia Times’s Kaveh Afrasiabi, writing from Tehran today, quotes an unnamed “political scientist” there as saying,
- “The chances are that the US incursion into Syria is a dress rehearsal for action against Iran and the [Iranian] Revolutionary Guards [Corps], just as they often portray Israel’s aerial attack on Syrian territory last year as a prelude for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.” … [He/she added] that since the US had already branded Iran’s Guards as terrorists, it had the necessary rationale to do so.
Afrasiabi also writes,
- In light of the incursion on Sunday by US forces inside Syrian territory, ostensibly to pursue al-Qaeda terrorists, there is suddenly concern on the part of many analysts in Tehran that the security agreement between Baghdad and Washington is not simply an internal matter for Iraqis to decide, but rather a regional issue that calls for direct input by Iraq’s neighbors.
I would say, strictly speaking, that there must have always been a degree of such concern; but maybe the recent raid increased it. Anyway, the Sukkariyeh raid is clearly very relevant to those clauses of the draft Iraqi-US SOFA that deal with who exercises effective authority over the use of any US troops that remain in Iraq: Washington or Baghdad?
Afrasiabi’s piece is interesting and apparently well reported.
He writes:
- “Iraq’s neighbors have been asked by the international community to participate in Iraq’s reconstruction and therefore by definition they should also be involved in security matters as well,” another analyst at a Tehran think-tank told the author.
This is not altogether an unreasonable request. Iran and the US have participated in three rounds of dialogue on Iraq’s security, and that, according to Tehran analysts, is as good a reminder as any that Washington’s decision to ignore Iran’s viewpoints on the security agreement is a bad error.
Simultaneously, there is a feeling that not all is lost and that the architects of this agreement have indeed taken into consideration some of Iran’s vocal objections, such as the initial agreement’s provisions for extraterritoriality whereby US personnel in Iraq would be immune from the Iraqi laws. That aspect has been modified, and the agreement also sets a time table for the withdrawal of US forces by no later than December 31, 2011, again something favored by Iran.
The bottom line I take from that is that there is a politically significant trend in Iran that is not wholly opposed to some US troops remaining in Iraq for a while longer— at least, so long as the actual mission and use of those troops is subject to some pretty severe constraints.
Iranian contentment with the continued deployment of some (or perhaps even a substantial number) of US troops inside Iraq– provided they are not a precursor force for a US attack on Iran– makes some strategic sense. All the US forces deployed throughout Iraq, at the end of very long and vulnerable international supply lines, act as, in effect, Iran’s first line of deterrence against any serious attack on its territory by either the US or Israel. They are sitting ducks for Iranian counter-attacks that, in the event of a US or US-enabled attack on Iran would be quite justified under international law.
The US/Iraq “security pact” or “SOFA” is not only the SOFA, I’ve just learned, but consists of two separate agreements — the SOFA and a Strategic Framework. The latter covers the duration of the US military occupation in Iraq and other matters such as the launching of attacks on other countries etc., and the SOFA covers the rights of the US troops during their stay.
from a July Report from the Congressional Research Service: . . .the Administration has announced that there will be two agreements negotiated, a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) providing the legal basis between the two countries for the continued presence and operation of U.S. armed forces in Iraq once the U.N. Security Council mandate expires on December 31, 2008, and a Strategic Framework agreement (together with the SOFA, the “Iraq Agreements” or “Agreements”) to cover the overall bilateral relationship between the two countries.
The SOFA has been discussed at Pentagon press conferences, and recently the Pentagon and the White House have issued warnings about the failure to reach agreement on the strategic framework. The State Department, however, has been rather quiet on the issue. Other than sounding off about Iran’s alleged interference Rice hasn’t said much. A keyword search for “Iraq Strategic Framework on the State blog “Dipnote” found no entries. This seems to be part of the overall militarization of US foreign policy. But there’s another motive, methinks.
I believe there has been an obfuscation of the fact that there are two agreements and that they have been melded together under the term SOFA so as to preclude Senate consideration as required by the Constitution, since a SOFA is traditionally an administrative matter.
The big question remain a mystery where UN from this “extra-judicial execution mission in Sukkariyeh, in neighboring Syria.”
We saw UN run fast and condemned Russian in Georgia UN been very fast responses condemning any suicide killing in occupied land of Palestine when few Israelis killed.
So where is UN and Kee Moon from this US “Terrorist Act”?