To get out of Iraq…

… will require a completely transformed relationship between Washington and the United Nations.
That is, it will require this if President-elect Obama is serious about pursuing, at the very least, a speedy and deep drawdown of US forces from there, and doing so in an orderly– or as the other word is, ‘responsible’– fashion.
And I think he is.
He’ll need the UN to do the convening of the regional, and probably also the intra-Iraqi, negotiations that will be required if the drawdown is to be orderly. I.e., if the departing US troops are not to be shot at as they depart, and Iraq and the surrounding region are not to descend into unimaginable chaos as the US troops leave.
Why the UN? Because only the UN can deal in a respectful and effective way with Iran and all other regional governments. Washington can’t do this within anything like the timetable required.
As Obama pursues the planning for the ‘drawdown’ from Iraq, in close coordination with the other four permanent members of the Security Council (which is what it’ll take), I think he will come to two important realizations:

    1. A partial drawdown really doesn’t make sense. Just possibly a remaining force of US troops re-hatted as part of a UN gendarmerie in a few portions of Iraq might still make some sense. But otherwise, all the grandiose Bushist ideas of a network of US-controlled military bases throughout Iraq, extensive US control over Iraq’s own national security affairs, etc, will be seen to be quite unrealizable. So effectively, what we’ll be talking about is an orderly pullout, not just a drawdown.
    2. The regional diplomacy required for this drawdown/pullout to happen in an orderly (i.e. non-chaotic) way can only be assured if Washington also coordinated effectively with all four other members of the P-5, and other relevant powers, on a range of other issues in the region and perhaps also beyond. First and foremost among these is the Palestine issue, as noted very clearly and explicitly by the Iraq Study Group back in December 2006. This means the UN must be given a much more effective role in leading the remaining strands of Arab-Israeli diplomacy than the pathetic, ‘junior partner’ role it currently plays within the dreadful Bushist ‘Quartet’.

Fortunately, as of January 1, 2009, the UN will already, most likely, be assuming a much more direct role in the governance of Iraqi security affairs. All the efforts the Bush administration has made to bribe and bully the Iraqi government into signing off on the coercive bilateral SOFA-plus arrangements have come to nought. And they can be expected to continue to be unsuccessful until the current ‘mandate’ that the US enjoys in Iraq, courtesy of the Security Council, comes to an end on December 31.
So as of next January 20, the UN Security Council will already have a considerably stronger and more direct role in the governance of Iraqi affairs than it currently has. That’s great.
But it would be even better if we could start to see some effective and inclusive inter-P5 coordination on Iraq and related security affairs starting to take place before December 31.
There are things the departing Bush administration could and should do– regarding Iraq, regarding Palestine, and other topics– long before January 19, if the final ‘legacy’ of this Bush administration in the Middle East is not to be remembered as one of total, and totally callous disaster.

4 thoughts on “To get out of Iraq…”

  1. It became clear during the presidential election that neither Barack Obama nor John McCain had much idea of what was happening in Iraq. During the early stages of the campaign the two men were divided over the question of an American military withdrawal.

    What the world wants from its president
    IRAQ
    By Patrick Cockburn

  2. A partial drawdown really doesn’t make sense.
    I’m glad you’ve appreciated this point. I’ve been saying it for months, but no-one has picked up on it.
    It is the essential feature that politicians at home in the US have failed to understand. Opposition to the occupation in Iraq is now such (and has been since June) that only two choices remain: either a military occupation at full blast for ever, or get out.
    Maliki has got the US in an impossible dilemma, where the US may have no choice but to give way to his conditions on the security agreement. That is so close now that it seems unavoidable.

  3. New Sam and Former Al
    To judge from the usual summary of this morning’s MSM thoughtwash, the former Al Eyewrack still does not know Big Sam Yank too well, despite over five and a half years of unsolicited cohabitation:
    What has Obama’s victory meant for negotiations with Iraqi leaders on the new security agreement? Depends on who you believe. The NYT says Obama’s election has drastically changed the mood to optimism and the agreement could be signed as early as the middle of this month. The WP, on the other hand, talks to Iraq’s chief spokesman and says Iraqi officials appear to be using Obama’s election “to pressure the Bush administration to make last-minute concessions,” specifically insisting on a firm withdrawal date for U.S. troops. According to the NYT, Iraqi officials used to think that Republicans wouldn’t respect any timetable that is included in the agreement, but now have more faith that Obama would. Also, Iran appears to be exerting less pressure on Iraqi politicians to reject the agreement, apparently because officials in Tehran are less concerned that an Obama presidency would seek regime change in their country. But the WP says Iraqis are insisting they need to return to the negotiating table, but U.S. officials say they’ve accommodated Iraqi concerns as much as possible in what was described as a “final text” of the agreement.
    (As you may know, Al has changed his Christian name to Ex — or maybe he spells it ‘X’ like in ‘Malcolm’, I forget — but anyway, Ex hopes to change it back one day: “A nation once again / A nation once again! / When Eyewrack, long a province, be / A nation once again!”)
    But seriously, ’ammá ba‘da, have you ever seen so much unwarrantable leaping to conclusions in so small a space?
    Still, a lot of it is paleface journalistic incompetence. Views attributed to the former Al by the New York Times Company actually belong to a certain M. “Hadi al-Ameri, a powerful member of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a major Shiite party.” The ipsissima verba run “Before, the Iraqis were thinking that if they sign the pact, there will be no respect for the schedule of troop withdrawal by Dec. 31, 2011. If Republicans were still there, there would be no respect for this timetable. This is a positive step to have the same theory about the timetable as Mr. Obama.”
    It certainly does not let A. J. Rubin off the hook professionally that M. al-‘Amirí pontificates as if he were X Eyewrack in person. One presumes that all the pols of the International Zone neorégime do that, assuming they speak Invasionese fluently enough to be interviewable. One presumes Ms. Rubin would have learned to discount for it. She doesn’t.
    The only good reason to take an interest in such pontification would be that it comes from a particular narrow circle immediately around poor M. al-Málikí, and there is no way to judge of that from the evidence provided. Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes: it is very flattering to be told that ThatOne™ is regarded as a more honest Abe than George XLIII Bush has shown himself to be, but let’s face it, flattery may be all it is. This particular fiend from the Supreme Hakeem faction may well expect to get what he wants by buttering up Senatorino Obáma in advance. Or M. al-‘Amirí may be expressing his sincere belief about the state of public sentiment amongst the spear-won neosubjects of AEI and GOP and DoD and USIP and AIPAC and . . . so on — which sincere belief might, of course, happen to be utterly mistaken. But God knows best!
    More to the point is another of Ms. Rubin’s quotees:
    “The atmosphere is positive with the American attempt to preserve the sovereignty of the Iraqi nation,” the government’s spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, told the news channel Al Arabiya. He praised the inclusion of a new provision stating that Americans would not launch attacks on Iraq’s neighbors from Iraqi soil.
    Unfortunately there is no sign of ThatOne™. If you want to concoct yourself a ‘narrative’ about the alleged positive atmosphere and attempted sovereignty being a result of Tuesday’s election returns in central North America, there is absolutely nothing to stop you. There is also absolutely nothing to encourage you. Procede at your own risk. “We report, you narrativate.”
    You would at least be skating on visible ice, though it may be very thin ice, to notice that the militant extremist GOP has just staged precisely an attack on X Eyewrack’s neighbor Mlle. Syria from X’s homelandish soil. “Nice little attempted sovereignty you got here, X, ol’ buddy. Be a shame if anythin’ bad” — sudden from just over the Northwest Frontier — “was to happen to it.”
    Do the Rancho Crawford cowpokers put me excessively in mind of Godfather flicks? Well, it’s not impossible. Considered dispassionately as a Harvard Victory School MBA sales technique, perhaps there is somethin’ to be said for it. If one was marketing, say Pertussin , wouldn’t it be nice to give the mark a cough inducer on the sly before tooting one’s product’s wonderful horn? It would be a delicate business to do the same trick with cancer, no doubt, but then the RC cowpokers obviously regard (other people’s) lack of sovereignty as only a very minor politicomedical condition.
    BGKB, w Alláhu ’a‘lam.
    Oddly enough the Washington Post paleface invasionite journalists (“Ernesto Londoño, Mary Beth Sheridan and Karen DeYoung”) quote M. al-Dabbágh too, and far more extensively, though mostly in paraphrase:
    Iraq’s chief spokesman said with unusual forcefulness Thursday that his government will continue to insist on a firm withdrawal date for U.S. troops, despite American demands that any pullout be subject to prevailing security conditions. “Iraqis would like to know and see a fixed date,” spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in an interview in which he also reiterated Iraq’s position that American forces be subject to Iraqi legal jurisdiction in some instances. (…) Dabbagh said negotiations to reach a status-of-forces agreement, which would sanction the U.S. military presence in Iraq beyond 2008, would collapse if no deal is reached by the end of this month. (…) Dabbagh spoke directly to [t]he Washington Post on Thursday, and in English. Dabbagh said officials must return to the negotiating table . . . . In the interview, Dabbagh said American soldiers should be prosecuted in the Iraqi court system if they commit grave offenses outside their bases, unless they are on a joint mission with Iraqi troops. U.S. combat troops should cease operating unilaterally by June, Dabbagh said, and the status-of-forces agreement should say that the vast majority of U.S. troops must leave Iraq by the end of 2011. “U.S. troops should be secluded to known camps,” Dabbagh said. “The Americans would be called whenever there is a need. Their movement would be limited.” (…)
    Seeking a renewal of the U.N. Security Council resolution that permits the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is an option the Iraqi government would like to avoid at all costs, Dabbagh said. “The U.N. mandate gives them a free hand in everything,” he said. Dabbagh said Maliki sent Obama a congratulatory letter Wednesday. He said many Iraqi leaders who initially favored Sen. John McCain of Arizona came to support Obama after the Democrat visited Iraq this summer because they realized their vision of the U.S. presence in Iraq was more in line with Obama’s than McCain’s. “They respect him and feel that he can be a good friend,” Dabbagh said, describing Iraqi leaders’ feelings toward Obama. (…) For example, Dabbagh said, the U.S. military’s multimillion-dollar effort to influence public opinion through television ads, billboards and other means should become a joint effort. “We don’t have a hand in all the propaganda that is being done now,” he said. “It could be done much better when Iraqis have a word and Iraqis can advise.”
    (( Presumably the Barber College of Journalism expressly teaches its pupils the limbs-of-Osiris approach to story-telling that Messers Lodoño and Sheridan and DeYoung so beautifully exemplify. Hence one cannot simply speak of ‘incompetence’. Whatever the perps call it themselves, it is detestable spinach and they ought to desist from it at once. In the specimen before us, some of those ellipses conceal additional paraphrase of “Iraqi officials” and the like that may or may not be additional Dabbághiana. No way to tell for sure. ))
    The Slate summatorialiser completely passes over the most interesting bit, namely M. al-Dabbágh’s notion that the right or power of the State to brainwash Her own subjects is a key attribute of sovereignty. Now that somebody has said that out loud, it sounds pretty plausible, nicht wahr? Yet reflect how remarkable it is that M. al-Dabbágh of the International Zone neorégime should be the first to say it! And that it gets said only at such a late date in the course of the Geschichte der Bildung der Menschheit !! And said from such an antecedently unlikely platform as the former al-‘Iráq!!!
    How could the late Dr. Joseph Goebbels have overlooked such a point? I ask you!
    Be that as it may, ’tis a pleasure to learn that the Age of Wonders has not ceased. Also that the electoral success of ThatOne™ is not the alone modern wonder.
    BGKB. Happy days.

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