A SOFA for Iraq: How Long Will We Stay

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Presently the only legal justification for the US occupation of Iraq is the UN Security Council mandate. In 2006 and again in 2007 the elected Iraqi Parliament attempted to block the extension of the mandate but were “cleanly excised” from the legislation process.

In 2006 the parliament’s efforts were by-passed by the appointed Iraqi Cabinet. In 2007 their resolution was passed, became law of the land and was received in good order by the UN special envoy, Ashraf Qazi, but never distributed to the Security Council members, as is required under the U.N. resolution that governs the mandate.

However, as per Secretary-General Moon’s report to the Security Council dated Oct. 15, the law that had been passed by the duly elected legislature of Iraq had become nothing more than a non-binding resolution.

The existing UN mandate under which US forces remain in Iraq will expire in December. Let’s take a look at what comes next.  

Two agreements are now under consideration. One is a Strategic Framework Agreement. This is a fundamental contract which creates an “alliance”. Chalmers Johnson writes in Chapter 5 of his book Nemesis that:

these agreements are usually short, straightforward treaties that express “common objectives” related to “national security” and “international threats to peace”.

Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, last November, signed such an agreement which commits the US to defend Iraq in the event of any threat from foreign aggression as well as external and internal threats.

There is concern among lawmakers in both Iraq and in the US. In Iraq:

… parliamentarians are increasingly concerned that they are being left out of talks between Iraqi and United States officials over a strategic deal to determine the future relationship between the two countries …

The explicitly aggressive tone of the Bush-Maliki agreement on protecting Iraq against foreign intervention has set off alarms in Washington that the administration may seek to use it as a cover to attack Iran, which has been repeatedly accused by US civilian and military officials of destabilizing Iraq.

In an unexpected move that could further increase tensions, the US military has established a station near the Iranian border without the consent of Iraqi authorities, and which sparked Iranian protests, Iran’s English-language Press TV reported in late April.

Source

And, in Washington: (from the same article)

While many lawmakers consider the deals to be treaties – which under the US constitution would require senate approval – the administration rejects that argument and says they are executive agreements that lie within the president’s powers.

The movement against the deals in Congress has been mainly led by Democrats who fear Bush’s attempts to set the future Iraq policy framework would tie the hands of the next president – who Democrats strongly hope will come from their ranks.

Juan Cole writes on his Informed Comment site – 25 May 2008:

Iraq’s most revered Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has strongly objected to a ‘security accord’ between the US and Iraq.

The Grand Ayatollah has reiterated that he would not allow Iraq to sign such a deal with “the US occupiers” as long as he was alive, a source close to Ayatollah Sistani said.

A Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA would set up a legal basis for the long term presence of US troops in Iraq. Prior to 9/11 the US had SOFAs with 93 countries. The number today is not known to the public. Chalmers Johnson writes in Chapter 5 of his book Nemesis about Status of Forces Agreements or SOFAs:

…intended above all to put any US forces stationed in the host country as far beyond its domestic laws as possible. What SOFAs do is give American soldiers, contractors, Department of Defense civilians, and their dependents a whole range of special privileges that are not available to ordinary citizens of the country or to non-American visitors. …they are almost never reciprocal-that is, the SOFAs bestow on Americans privileges that are not available to citizens of the host nation if they should visit or be assigned to the United States. The major exception is the SOFA governing NATO, which is reciprocal.

Resentment and continued resistance can be expected if such an arrangement is made. In Nemesis Johnson details the effects on Japan’s relatively small southern-most island of Okinawa which is host to some 37 US military bases, more than 50,000 US troops, military related civilians and military family members.

Juan Cole, in the article referenced above, continues:

The “extraterritoriality” of foreign troops was a common legal feature of colonial arrangements in the region. It was one of the things the nationalist movements campaigned about, and typically they abrogated it as soon as they came to power. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini made the legal immunity of US troops in Iran in the 1960s and 1970s a plank in his platform of revolution against the Shah.

Moqtada al-Sadr has boldly and bluntly made this statement directed at President Bush himself.

I say this to the evil Bush – leave my country.

We do not need you and your army of darkness.

We don’t need your planes and tanks.

We don’t need your policy and your interference.

We don’t want your democracy and fake freedom.

Get out of our land.

With no intentions of sounding like Thomas Friedman, the coming six to seven months will be a critical period in determining the future of America in Iraq. Will the Bush Administration, despite resistance at home and in Iraq, ink agreements with the Iraqi leadership that will permit an extended, if not permanent US presence in Iraq? If so, how will such agreements be accepted by the elected Iraqi Parliament and by the Iraqi people?

How much flexibility would a new Obama administration have in dealing with the situation which would be turned over to them from the outgoing Bush Administration?

The period of the coming months is going to be an anxious and interesting time.