by Cockney Robin | THE GOOD NEWS: According to The Wall Street Journal, the Bush administration has made a number of concessions to the Iraqi government which may mean the draft security agreement will soon be signed.
The draft agreement sets 2011 as the goal date by which U.S. combat troops will leave Iraq, according to Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Haj Humood and other people familiar with the matter. In the meantime, American troops will be leaving cities, towns and other population centers by the summer of 2009, living in bases outside of those areas, according to the draft. (WSJ)
And there's more: the Bush team has stopped pressing for immunity from Iraqi law for American contractors:
The administration also dropped its insistence that American contractors remain immune from Iraqi law. Western contractors -- especially those working for Blackwater, which is under investigation for a deadly shooting last year -- are deeply unpopular in Iraq (WSJ).
They're still working on whether US military personnel will be immune from prosecution.
One of the last remaining roadblocks had been whether U.S. military personnel would enjoy immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law. Mr. Humood, Iraq's chief negotiator on the agreement, said joint committees of U.S. and Iraqi officials will be formed to resolve such issues when cases arise. (WSJ)
According to the article, Bush is almost certain to sign and doesn't believe the deal requires Congressional approval. (WSJ) There's a surprise.
Petraeus is cautiously optimistic.
Gen. David Petraeus, the top American commander here, said in an interview that the U.S. already was focusing on turning control of the country over to Iraqis.
"We have to let go, and we're not reluctant to do that. And the Iraqis are not reluctant to take control," Gen. Petraeus said....
But the general added that no one is "giving each other high-fives." Although extremist groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq and rogue Shiite militias have been weakened, he said, they could gain strength again.
"There is a measure of hope in Iraq that was not present 18 months ago," he said. "Now, that's just a measure of hope. It's not a celebration."(WSJ)
At The Political Animal, Kevin Drum thinks this is good news generally for Democrats and Obama. "When rumors of an agreement like this were being floated last month, he insisted that he had talked to Maliki personally and he knew that Maliki didn't really want a timetable for withdrawal. Looks like he was wrong about that." Among other things, he discusses Republican spin and the probable reaction of McCain.
Basic McCain spin: "It's good news that Iraq is now secure enough that we can envision bringing our troops home etc. etc." He'll also talk about how the surge deserves all the credit and he'll claim that 2011 is a totally different thing than Obama's plan to withdraw by 2010. This isn't great spin, but it's probably the best he's got. (Political Animal)
Drum thinks the fact that it was negotiated by a Republican president means it will be "almost impossible for conservatives to ramp up any kind of serious stab-in-the-back narrative against anti-war liberals."(Political Animal) He reckons it will be good for Obama, who gets to say, "Glad Bush came around to my point of view."(Political Animal)
I was a bit puzzled about this---won't Republicans just claim it was all down to the surge? I asked--- till I saw that Procrustean Thinker/Libertarian/Freebooters' Market advocate Meagan McArdle was puzzled as well. If Meagan McArdle thinks that Drum is wrong, this is practically a guarantee that he is right.
But all these goodies will seemingly be imperilled if THE BAD NEWS gains traction. Cf. Petraeus's above-quoted remarks.
THE BAD NEWS: In the meantime, McClatchy soberingly notes:
A key pillar of the U.S. strategy to pacify Iraq is in danger of collapsing because the Iraqi government is failing to absorb tens of thousands of former Sunni Muslim insurgents who'd joined U.S.-allied militia groups into the country's security forces....
[T]he Iraqi government, which is led by Shiite Muslims, has brought only a relative handful of the more than 100,000 militia members into the security forces. Now officials are making it clear that they don't intend to include most of the rest.
"We cannot stand them, and we detained many of them recently," said one senior Iraqi commander in Baghdad, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the issue. "Many of them were part of al Qaida despite the fact that many of them are helping us to fight al Qaida." (McClatchy)
The Iraqis are considering requiring all of the militia members who haven't been taken in to the security forces to turn over weapons or face arrest. (McClatchy) This is not a popular move with the militia members. Some of the leaders of the insurgents say that if this happens, all bets are off and they will be back to open warfare against the government (McClatchy).
It seems clear that the Anbar awakening really was key to US strategy in Iraq, perhaps even more so than the surge. (Cf. BN-Pol) Our own Deb Cupples pointed out a couple of potential flies in this particular ointment some time ago ("Awakening Groups" in Iraq: a Strategy Doomed to Fail?; Success in Iraq by Arming "Enemies"?).
Is this strategy going to backfire?
U.S. and Iraqi officials agree that the Maliki government never agreed to hire more than 20 percent of the militia members. A Maliki ally said it was unreasonable to expect otherwise.
"All the Americans are doing is paying them just to be quiet," said Haider al Abadi, a leading member of Maliki's Dawa political party and the head of the economic and investment committee in the parliament. The Iraqi government, he said, can't "justify paying monthly salaries to people on the grounds that they are ex-insurgents."
The best that most of them could expect is to be placed in vocational training for trades such as bricklaying and plumbing, along with a slew of other unemployed people.
The government has allocated $150 million for such training. So far this year, the U.S. military has spent $303 million on Sons of Iraq salaries.
American officials declined to be interviewed on the issue without a pledge of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject. But privately they expressed concern. (McClatchy)
This article at Military.com, "A Dark Side to Iraq 'Awakening' Groups," dated 4 Jan 2008, isn't exactly reassuring either.
How, when thousands are joining each month, can spies and extremists be reliably weeded out? How can the members' loyalty be maintained, given their tribal and sectarian ties, and in many cases their insurgent pasts? And crucially, how can the movement be sustained once the U.S. turns over control to a Shiite-dominated government that has been wary of and sometimes hostile toward the groups?
Despite the successes of the movement, including the members' ability to provide valuable intelligence and give rebuilding efforts a new chance in war-shattered communities, the U.S. military acknowledges that it is also a high-risk proposition.
It is an experiment in counterinsurgency warfare that could contain the seeds of a civil war - in which, if the worst fears come true, the United States would have helped organize some of the Sunni forces arrayed against the central government on which so many American lives and dollars have been spent. (More)
So....if a key pillar comes down because the Iraqis don't want to keep paying the ex-insurgents, won't all bets be off? And if so, which candidate/party will be benefited thereby?
American politics: so confusing.
Memeo: blogger buzz on WSJ article.
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