The occupiers’ faltering status in Iraq

THE U.S. is scrambling to get the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to approve a status of forces agreement that will authorize the presence of U.S. troops after December 31. Why does it seem like the U.S. is struggling to get an agreement with a government it installed?

THERE IS a big gap between what the U.S. was originally demanding in March for the SOFA and what it's seeking now.

At that time, the agreement seemed to ratify a continuation of the occupation--no limit on the number of U.S. troops in Iraq, no time limit for their withdrawal. But this created a nationalist reaction, and that's really been growing over the last eight months or so.

So the final draft has very definite dates for withdrawal--and now even that is being rejected by the Maliki government. U.S. combat troops will have to leave the cities and remain on bases as of the end of June 2009, and at the end of 2011, U.S. troops have to leave Iraq. This amounts to U.S. acceptance of a timeline, which the Bush administration originally said it could never accept.

IT SEEMS strange that the Maliki government negotiated a SOFA with the U.S. that it now says it's unwilling to sign

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IT LOOKS confusing because it is confusing. I think that the nationalist reaction within Iraq was greater than the Iraqi government itself had expected, and it was certainly greater than the U.S. government had imagined. Some important religious figures have come out against signing. The followers of Moktada al-Sadr have had big demonstrations in Sadr City against signing. Iran is against the treaty.

But the government goes backward and forward. Sometimes, it thinks that it could do without the Americans, and sometimes, it wonders if it could survive in those circumstances.

That's why we have a strange situation where the government negotiates an agreement, and then backs away from it.

WHAT ARE the major points of contention? The U.S. appears to have already given up on gaining legal immunity for private contractors in Iraq, but it still wants immunity for U.S. military personnel

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THE DISPUTE about immunity for U.S. soldiers is largely symbolic. They are arguing about what would happen if there was a crime committed by a U.S. soldier off duty and off base, but this isn't likely to happen. You don't find individual American soldiers wandering around Iraq.

But the contractor issue is more serious. It may even be more serious than it looks, because contractors might not end up in front of an Iraqi court, but they are very unpopular in Iraq. So if they open fire and kill civilians, it's quite likely that Iraqi security forces would fire back at them in the future.

All along, the White House has been stressing--right up to the present--that the withdrawal of troops is conditional on security improving. The Iraqi government seems keen to remove that conditionality, and it appears that the last draft removes that clause. They keep on saying that what the U.S. is giving with one hand, it is giving away with the other--and that they want a hard-and-fast commitment for when the U.S. departs.

The occupation has never been popular, even from day one, and this has been shown by every opinion poll. There have been variations in the extent to which each community, the Sunni or the Shia Arabs, oppose the occupation, but it has always been unpopular outside Kurdistan.

In the last few days, important ministers--defense, interior, foreign and security--have come out in favor of signing the agreement, but these are the ministries most under the influence of the U.S.

It is possible that this thing will eventually get signed in a modified form. But two things have been revealed. One, the U.S. didn't get what it wanted six or eight months ago, so America's political position in Iraq is weaker. And two, the Iraqi government itself is very divided on this issue. You have Shia against Shia, Sunni against Shia, Arabs against Kurds. It shows that the political situation is very fragile in general.

HOW BIG a problem is it for the U.S. if they don't get the Iraqis to sign off on the agreement?

PEOPLE TALK about the U.S. returning to their bases because their presence would be "illegal." But has U.S. behavior in Iraq been restrained by legality over the last five years? This seems to me a little absurd.

I think things will continue as they are at the moment. I suspect at some point, some variation on this agreement will be signed, but the whole struggle over it has been very revealing about how fragile the situation is in Iraq.

THE DEBATE about the agreement within Iraq has also produced an odd situation where it seems as if the Sunnis are the most enthusiastic about signing the deal, while the Shia-dominated government is dragging its feet. What's going on there?

THIS IS part of a turnaround that has been underway for some time.

Originally, it was the Shia community, which is 60 percent of the population, that was cooperating with the U.S., because it wanted to take political power away from the Sunnis, who make up 20 percent of the population and had dominated the Iraqi government for decades. So the Shia made a strategic decision to ally themselves with the U.S.

And it was the Sunnis who rebelled against the occupation and who fought U.S. troops. Militarily, they didn't do badly against the U.S., but they were very much under pressure from the Shia, particularly in 2006 and 2007. They were being driven out of Baghdad and massacred--many fled the country to Jordan and Syria. They decided that they had too many enemies.

So the former insurgents began to ally themselves with the U.S. rather than fight the U.S. They were also under pressure from al-Qaeda, but they began to feel that even if they drove the U.S. out of the country, their situation would be worse rather than better--that the Shia were marginalizing the Sunni community.

THE SADRISTS represent one current of the Shia community that opposes the agreement, and it seems like one of Maliki's biggest concerns is that the Sadrists could punish his supporters in the upcoming Iraqi elections if he signs the agreement. Can you talk about this dynamic?

THE U.S. presence isn't popular, but there is a question about exactly how it ends. Maliki is nervous about being portrayed as an American pawn by the Sadrists and even by the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which is the main basis for his government.

He has been trying to pump up his own party, Dawa, using government resources and money. And he is also trying to present himself as the patriotic leader of Iraq, but he doesn't seem to be able to make up his mind as to where he stands with regards to the U.S. presence.

It was his negotiators who produced the final draft of the agreement, yet he immediately expressed doubts once it came under criticism.

DO YOU think that the falling price of oil will tend to weaken the Iraqi government?

I THINK it will matter less than most places, because Iraq can't spend the money it already has. It has some $79 billion in reserves in the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.

Iraqi ministries generally can't spend their present budgets. So if their budgets are reduced, it won't really have much effect. The weakness of the Iraqi government is not lack of money--it's that the government ministries are somewhat dysfunctional.

In a country that has 50 or 60 percent unemployment, the ministry that deals with that question--the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs--only spent about 10 percent of its budget over the last year. So I think it's false to see the falling price of oil doing much damage to Iraq or the economy.

WHAT ARE the main factors that have weakened the political standing of the U.S. in Iraq in your opinion?

THE SECTARIAN warfare is reduced. Two years ago, there was a very bitter civil war between the Sunni and Shia, and that's over. People are still being killed in Baghdad, but it's not the mass slaughter we saw before.

That, combined with the fact that the insurgency is largely over, means that the Iraqi government feels less that it needs the U.S. It's also frightened of the U.S. keeping much of the power in its own hands.

The Iraqi state has been growing strongly. They have a lot of money. It's large, employing about 2 million people, and it's dysfunctional in some ways, but it has troops that are increasingly well-armed. That means it has become more powerful.

A critical moment came earlier this year during the fighting with the Sadrists. The Iraqi army wasn't doing very well, but Iran did back Maliki and the government. The Iranians mediated a ceasefire with the Sadrists very much on the government's terms. That again removed pressure on the government.

So the government is no longer under attack from Sunni insurgents or Shia militias, and it increasingly began to feel it could do without the full American support it had needed previously.