Permanent Bases in Iraq? How About Permanent Civil War?
If anyone doubted the Bush administration's intent to pass the Iraq war on to the next president, or if anyone still believed the rhetoric about the withdrawal of American forces as Iraq "stood up," then yesterday's agreement between the United States and Iraq should disabuse them of those notions.
For many, including Talking Point Memo and Keith Olbermann, the agreement reverses earlier pledges that the U.S. would not seek permanent bases. It thus becomes part of another Bush lie.
Yet it's not as if Cakewalk & Co. intended, after four and a half years, to have more troops in Iraq than they started with and an Iraqi government that can't govern or defend itself. Iraq has been a disaster, absolutely. But there is no evidence -- none -- that the Pentagon went to war with the intent of establishing new permanent bases.
At the same time, the declaration signed yesterday is worse than a secret pledge to establish bases. It's a pledge to permanently guarantee the Baghdad government's security -- from external and internal threats. It is, in short, America's commitment to fight in Iraq's civil war.
President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki signed a "Declaration of Principles for a Long-Term Relationship of Cooperation and Friendship" yesterday extending the United Nations mandate governing coalition forces in the country for another year and paving the way for a set of bilateral treaty relationships once the mandate expires.
According to the White House, the agreement moves the U.S. and Iraq closer to normalized "enduring" relations, a relationship it says it hopes will "require fewer Coalition forces."
The U.S. pledged to continue combat operations and its support of the Iraqi government in training and arming its security forces. The U.S. also provided a security guarantee, similar to that of a treaty partner, "to deter foreign aggression against Iraq that violates its sovereignty and integrity of its territories, waters, or airspace." But most troublesome is the pledge to support Iraq in combating "all terrorist groups, at the forefront of which is Al-Qaeda, Saddamists, and all other outlaw groups regardless of affiliation,"
This passage dangerously blurs the line between terrorists and other armed individuals in Iraq, between people fighting the U.S. occupation and people threatening the integrity of the country. It ignores the existence of the insurgency. And it effectively lumps al Qeada with the Shia militias that are enforcing sharia law in southern Iraq and the independent Kurdish militias and police in the north.
Of course, President Bush has always framed the U.S. mission in Iraq as part of the war on terrorism. But Iraq's acceptance of this lazy definition gives the Baghdad government virtually unlimited power. And it obscures how complicated this situation is on the ground, thereby making solutions (and U.S. withdrawal) that much more complicated.
By William M. Arkin | November 27, 2007; 8:54 AM ET
The Washington Post.com
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