Iraq Analysis: Is PM al-Maliki Holding Firm for US Withdrawal? (Cole)

Juan Cole analyses:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki made news this week with his interview in The Wall Street Journal, in the course of which he insisted that all US troops would be out of Iraq by January 1, 2012:

WSJ: Some American officials have spoken about contingency plans being drawn now in Washington for the possibility that some American troops will stay after 2011. Do you know about these contingency plans, and do you need troops?

Mr. Maliki: I do not care about what’s being said. I care about what’s on paper and what has been agreed to. The withdrawal of forces agreement [Status of Forces Agreement or SOFA] expires on Dec. 31, 2011. The last American soldier will leave Iraq.

Secondly this agreement is sealed and at the time we designated it as sealed and not subject to extension, except if the new government with Parliament’s approval wanted to reach a new agreement with America, or another country, that’s another matter. This agreement is not subject to extension, not subject to alteration, it is sealed, it expires on Dec. 31 [2011]. 

Al-Maliki, in specifying parliament as the body that would have to make any new agreement for US troops to come back to Iraq after that date, was implicitly throwing cold water on the hopes of American officials in Washington that they might be able to just have the prime minister extend the warrant for foreign troops to remain in the country.

Nor is there any reason to think that is what al-Maliki would want. A US official in Basra wrote last January that “According to XXXXXXXXXX, the GOI [government of Iraq] is anxious to ‘get rid of all the white faces carrying guns’ in their streets....”

There are not 163 votes in parliament for an extension of the US troop presence, and any move in that direction would likely cause al-Maliki’s government to fall. Muqtada al-Sadr’s followers have 40 seats in parliament and are the leading party in the National Iraqi Alliance, the Shiite fundamentalist parties, who have a total of 70 seats. They would pull out of al-Maliki’s government and likely return to militia activity were he to betray their expectations in that way. Al-Maliki’s own State of Law coalition, including his Islamic Mission Party (Da`wa) is certainly not going to plump for US troops to remain. It has 89 seats. Those two Shiite religious blocs have 159 seats between them. And, among the Sunni Arabs of the Iraqiya, there would certainly be at least 4 who opposed retaining US troops. Voila, 163. No parliamentary approval.

There is substantial doubt and deep-seated suspicion among many Americans that the US is truly getting out. The suspicion is justified, and there are certainly powerful political and military interests in Washington that do not want to leave.

But the likelihood is that the US military mission in Iraq really is rapidly winding down....

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