Iraq: A Lose-Lose with SOFA?

Before signing off for Christmas, I’d like to draw your attention (via Abu Aardvark) to this interesting new briefing from USIP.
The paper, written by Daniel P. Serwer and Sam Parker and titled Iraq in the Obama Administration, offers several worthwile recommendations to the inbound president on how to navigate the morass of Iraq. One in [...]

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Iraqi Parliament Approves SOFA — Now What?

SOFA becomes reality, and here’s Reidar Visser’s take on the “Withdrawal Treaty”:
[...} George W. Bush never managed to use leverage in the negotiations with the Iraqi government over bilateral relations. Instead, during the course of one year, his administration essentially performed an unconditional reversal of its Iraq policy, silently moving from its [...]

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Iraq and SOFA: Leaving a Mess or Cleaning Up?

Want a hyper-cynical take on SOFA? Here’s Andrew Sullivan’s:
[The hard right] will try to argue that Obama’s choice to withdraw has led to a victory for al Qaeda and that the Democrats have stabbed American troops in the back. (You can almost write Palin’s primary campaign message three years ahead of time.) But now that [...]

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America in Iraq: (Just) Three More Years?

If The Wall Street Journal has it right (and it may not), U.S. combat troops will leave Iraq in 2011. The way I see it, there are exactly two ways of looking at this: 1) 2011 is too late; or 2) it’s too early. But before we start a Missing Links style tit-for-that, let’s put [...]

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Iraq: SOFA with a Deadline?

Last month, in one of my fits of sarcasm, I commented on the ongoing Iraqi-U.S. talks on a Status of Forces Agreement:
I bet the Bush administration never thought this would happen — that a newly assertive Iraqi government would want to make a security deal not with America but (wait for it) Iran, and — [...]

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Janaja: A Raid Gone Wrong

Iraqi officials are demanding an investigation into a U.S. raid on the town of Janaja, in the southern Karbala Province, according to McClatchy. Janaja happens to be the birthplace of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, and because the province has been officially handed over to Iraqi security forces, the Iraqis are talking about a violation of [...]

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Bush started SOFA push in 2003 — NS Archive

The Bush administration pushed for a status of forces agreement with Iraq already in November 2003, according to unclassified documents obtained by the National Security Archive.
The heavily redacted documents include a December 2003 cable by CPA head Jerry Bremer to the State Department and the NSC calling for “wide latitude to provide for the safety [...]

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Maliki bombshell: U.S. “infringing on Iraqi sovereignty”

Am I the only one who finds this funny (albeit in a tragic way)? After five years of war, and with some 150,000 foreign troops in the country, the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, which has been propped up by a foreign power all along, suddenly finds that the demands of that power “hugely [...]

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SOFA: Look what happened last time

Those who think a U.S.-Iraqi strategic relationship would be fantastic for all concerned, a little warning from history may be in order. Here’s what Ellen Laipson writes in her excellent White Paper about the “special relationship” between Washington and the Shah of Iran:
Over time, U.S. policy led to less freedom of maneuver for Washington, and [...]

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SOFA: Looks nice but hard to sit on

The SOFA controversy continues. Maliki wants to keep the U.S. forces but doesn’t want them to fool around without his permission, and he wants contractors prosecuted if they screw up — all of which sounds reasonable to me, but apparently not to the White House.
Well — if you’re not happy with the Maliki administration, why [...]

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