Analysis: The Two Vital Words on Obama's Iraq Withdrawal "Intend To"

Related Post: Withdrawal from Iraq? The Escape Clauses Begin

Update: Jeremy Scahill offers a related, pessimistic analysis on AlterNet. Marc Lynch is much more hopeful.


"Intend to" as in "I intend to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011"....

With that statement, President Obama apparently went beyond my immediate concern that some in the US Government were planning on the long-term stay of 50,000 American soldiers in the country. With those two words, however, he left himself room for manoeuvre. Less positively, it is also room for the US military and its supporters to maintain its pressure for permanent bases in the area. That is the space that leading Democrats in Congress were trying to shut down last night; as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi framed it, "The remaining missions given to our remaining forces must be clearly defined and narrowly focused so that the number of troops needed to perform them is as small as possible."

In that context, the headline of "the historic announcement" of an 18-month timetable for withdrawal of US combat troops is peripheral. Whether it was 16 months (Obama's original plan), 23 months (the US military's counter), or 18 months (the political compromise) is tangential to the larger questions of the American political and military intentions.

Far more important is a passage in the speech that has received less media attention, except from The Washington Post:

We must work with our friends and partners to establish a new framework that advances Iraq’s security and the region’s....Going forward, the United States will pursue principled and sustained engagement with all of the nations in the region, and that will include Iran and Syria.

As I've noted before, that was a formula put forward by the Iraq Study Group in 2006 but rejected by the Bush Administration in favour of the military-first "surge": "The United States should immediately launch a new diplomatic offensive to build an international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region. This diplomatic effort should include every country that has an interest in avoiding a chaotic Iraq, including all of Iraq’s neighbors."

Obama's Iraq strategy is thus part of the wider engagement strategy his Administration has been pushing from Inauguration Day. On the one hand, that raises optimism that the discussions with Syria and Iran are not just token displays and could lead to the most productive American strategy in the "wider Middle East" in at least 30 years. On the other, the failure of that engagement now has serious consequences: if talks with Tehran and/or Damascus collapse, then Obama's "intention to" withdraw completely by the end of 2001 is in jeopardy.

Which brings up back to those 50,000 troops. The Iraq Study Group was clear: "The United States must not make an open-ended commitment to keep large numbers of American troops deployed in Iraq." That recommendation, however, ran up against an earlier Bush Administration strategy of maintaining an indefinite presence in the country, not primarily for Iraqi stability, but to maintain a "preponderance of power" over rivals such as Syria and Iran and to ensure control of energy resources. Some in the US military, and their supporters outside Government, are still wedded to that vision.

That, of course, is a prospect which is not welcomed by many folks in Tehran or Damascus, let alone the political elite in Baghdad. So the irony is that the frontline of Obama's Iraq plan is not in Iraq but in the wider region. Watch the manoeuvres of those who are hostile to any engagement not only because they don't like "rogue states" (and, in some cases, are committed to an Israel-first approach) but because they want to maintain a platform for US permanent bases in Iraq. And watch for the response of the Obama Administration --- the longer it sustains a serious commitment to the regional dialogue advocated in 2006, the more likely it is that the President's "intend to" becomes a reality.

Your Daily Update: What Exactly is Dennis Ross in Charge Of?

In today's episode, we try to find Dennis' new office in the State Department, courtesy of The Cable blog at Foreign Policy and ask if he is the now the Super-Envoy for Bahrain. Or Turkmenistan. Or maybe Sylvania.

The State Department, bless them, is trying to reassure folks off-the-record that Ross --- despite the public efforts not to mention the I-word in the description of his duties --- has been really important in the review of Iran policy. He has been in discussions with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Undersecretary of State William Burns, who has been Washington's point man in talks about and with the Iranians, and the Department's staff.

So far, so good. But then "sources" start bringing out other names. There's Puneet Talwar, the senior director on Iran, Iraq, and the Gulf for the National Security Council. Gary Samore, the NSC's nonproliferation coordinator, and Robert Einhorn, the likely Undersecretary of State for nonproliferation, are also in the mix. And maybe Vali Nasr, who is a specialist on Shiism and Iran but wound up as an advisor to Richard Holbrooke on Afghanistan and Pakistan, comes into play.

Let's not say too many cooks (or, heaven help, too many chiefs and not enough Indians), but the Ross episode --- while giving us lots of political chuckles --- indicates that President Obama's clear statement of "engagement" is in tension with a lack of coordination and clarity inside the Administration.

No great harm in that...yet. There's no real breakthrough possible until after June's Presidential election in Iran. The risk, however, is that the muddle at the State Department and beyond leaves the field open for the sniping critics who would like nothing better than fist-shaking at the "mullahs".

Our Daily Drama: What Exactly is Dennis Ross in Charge Of?

Yesterday we brought you the second installment in our running series on the appointment of Dennis Ross to be Not an Envoy but a Special Advisor Advising on Something, Somewhere.

Hours later, State Department spokesman Robert Wood and unnamed journalists starred in the next episode. Like all good soap operas, there were no conclusions, only more cliffhangers:

QUESTION: Have your ace geographers been able to determine what Southwest Asia is and thereby figure out what exactly Dennis Ross’s mandate is?

MR. WOOD: I’m so shocked that you asked that question. Let me give you my best – our best read of this. From our standpoint, the countries that make up areas of the Gulf and Southwest Asia include Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Yemen, and those are the countries.

QUESTION: Not – not Afghanistan and Pakistan?

MR. WOOD: Look, Ambassador Ross will look at the entire region, should he be asked to, including Afghanistan. But this is something that would be worked out. You were – you asked the question yesterday about Ambassador Holbrooke and whether there was going to be some kind of, I don’t know, conflict over who is working in – on that particular issues in that country.

Look, Ambassador Ross and Ambassador Holbrooke will work together where necessary if they need to, if there’s some kind of overlap. But that’s, in essence, the State Department’s geographical breakdown of Southwest Asia.

QUESTION: Okay. So it does not – it is not the same breakdown as the military uses?

MR. WOOD: No, the military uses a different breakdown, but I’d have to refer you to them for their specific breakdown. ...

QUESTION:QUESTION: Okay. But on Iran, like for instance, if someone – if the United States wanted to engage Iran on, for instance, Afghanistan, and you’ve said before from this podium that Afghanistan could play – Iran, sorry, could play a helpful role in Afghanistan – who would be kind of handling that? Would that be the special advisor for Southwest Asia in Iran, or would it be the special advisor for Afghanistan and Pakistan? Because Ambassador Holbrooke has said that he thought Iran could play a helpful role, and that suggests that he might be handling that kind of dialogue.

MR. WOOD: Well, this is—again, this is speculation. You know, we’ll have to see what happens if, indeed, we get to that point about who handles an issue with regard to Iran. It really depends on, you know, a variety of factors. I can’t – it’s hypothetical, so I just can’t give you an answer specifically on that. ...

QUESTION: Yes. You know, I’m a little confused because in your statement to announce Dennis Ross’s appointment as the Southwest Asia person, you referred to two wars in the region. So which is the other war? Iraq – was Afghanistan part of that and then you took it away because of Holbrooke’s complaints or --....Just a wee bit confused here.

MR. WOOD: No, there are two wars that are raging in that region, and I’m talking about the larger region.

QUESTION: But that was included within the Southwest Asia that you demarcated in the statement.

MR. WOOD: Right. Like I said, Afghanistan is one of those issues where you have a lot of individuals who have some interests and equities in dealing with it. And as I said, if we get to a point where there is a need to have both Ambassador Ross and Ambassador Holbrooke engaging on different elements of it, they will. And they will certainly – you know, they’ll do that. But we are very clear in that statement, I think, in terms of where we see wars raging and the need to have appropriate people working on these issues.

QUESTION: Because in the CIA fact book, a book which a lot of people use, Southwest Asia does include Afghanistan....

MR. WOOD: Well, that’s the CIA. I’m giving you – again, I gave you what the State Department’s position is on the region.

QUESTION: Well, it sounds like you – it sounds like you have a turf battle brewing, if not already begun. Maybe you should lock Holbrooke and Ross up in a room and fight it out?

MR. WOOD: That’s your characterization. There’s no turf war going on here.

QUESTION: Well, no, Robert, because I believe that originally, Afghanistan was included in this – in Dennis’s (inaudible) here, and it’s interesting that it’s been taken out, so --...So was it removed, though, because – with the wars referring to the war in Afghanistan? I mean, was it removed because --

MR. WOOD: I just spelled this out for you. I don’t have anything more to say on it.

Scott Lucas in Iranian Newspaper Payvand

Earlier this week I spoke at length with the Islamic Republic News Agency about US-Iran relations. Part of the conversation has appeared in the English-language edition Payvand. The headline, "Iran nuclear issue used by US as pawn in bigger game: American professor", is a somewhat incomplete account of my views, but the full article does reflect my "cautious optimism" over the future of the US-Iranian engagement and focused on the diplomatic process. It even included my view that "there may have been some very quiet discussions behind the scene privately already taking place between US and Iranian intermediaries".

Read the article....

One to Watch: Iran Tests First Nuclear Plant

Related Post: Diplomatic Question of the Day - What Exactly is Dennis Ross In Charge Of?

Iran, in a high-profile ceremony on Wednesday, announced it has carried out successful tests at its Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant. The visiting head of Russia's state nuclear company, Sergei Kiriyenko, hailed "significant improvements" in the first Iranian nuclear facility to provide electricity.

So far, no real attempt to turn the news into a sign that Tehran is closer to dropping a bomb on us. The Times had a lengthy article shifting from atomic energy to "the United States and European Union suspect that Iran is secretly building a nuclear bomb". US media have been quiet, however, and there has been no reaction from the Obama Administration.