EDITORIALS
Iraq agreement is welcome
Status of forces pact sets a time for Iraqi control, American departure
Hawk, dove. Republican, Democrat. American, Iraqi.
The draft security agreement between the United States and Iraq has the potential to be what everyone wanted and all that they reasonably could hope for — a responsible and face-saving way out of what has become a too-long and far too-costly American military presence in Iraq.
Everyone, that is, but al-Qaida and Iran. Both of them stand to lose the perception of American imperialism as the major excuse for their bellicose behavior and rhetoric. And that’s got to be a good thing.
The new pact, formally known as a Status of Forces Agreement, isn’t exactly what either President Bush or President- elect Barack Obama wanted. It still faces a fight (sometimes with real punches) in the Iraqi Parliament and good questions from the American Congress (where, long ago, members were known to hit each other with walking sticks). Significant elements of Iraqi society won’t like it.
But the pact presents the closest thing anyone has seen to the light at the end of the tunnel.
The agreement includes lots of details about what U. S. forces as a group will be allowed to do in Iraq and how individual Americans will be treated if accused of any crimes. But the bottom line is that it commits America to withdraw its forces from Iraqi civilian areas by the end of June and to be out of the country altogether by the end of 2011.
Bush had resisted anything resembling a deadline. Obama had wanted to move even faster than the agreement calls for in bringing home the bulk of American forces, but he reserved the right to leave a garrison in Iraq if security needs called for it.
Thus the agreement differs from what both American leaders said they wanted in favor of the widely held Iraqi idea that U. S. forces should pack up and move by a date certain. But it also helps both — Bush by putting his stamp on the ending of this saga, and Obama by giving him more flexibility and less accountability than his campaign promises mandated.
The big question before the Iraqi body politic now is whether that date is certain, or soon, enough. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says it is. He not only went on Iraqi TV the other day to praise the agreement, he reportedly won the qualified endorsement of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, leader of the nation’s majority Shiite community. But that qualification, significantly, is that it win a clear mandate in Parliament, which is by no means assured.
There are, meanwhile, rumblings from the Pentagon that Bush, wanting the deal to be concluded on his watch, gave up too much. In addition to the deadline, which some security experts still think too risky, Iraq got some authority over holding Americans responsible for any criminal behavior that occurs off-base. It also got a promise that the United States would not use Iraq as a base for striking any other nation, which means Iran.
It is risky. If Iraq isn’t ready to ride without the training wheels in 2012, the United States will face the choice of either staying beyond its official welcome or allowing the nation we spilled so much blood and treasure in to collapse. In an election year.
But we have to leave sometime. The pact, and the power the Iraqi government had to mold it, show that nation standing up for itself, which is not only good for us but should also help greatly to calm the whole region by shrinking the influence of al-Qaida and Iran.
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