SOFA Iraq, November 2008

The Americans and Iraqis just concluded a Status Of Forces Agreement stipulating a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces in Iraq. This drawdown is to occur in stages, beginning with a withdrawal from Iraqi cities over the summer, and culminating in the complete removal of US forces by the end of 2011. The agreement has generated little or no attention in America however, which is still catching its breath after a grueling four-year long election season, recent economic turbulence, and a comfortingly distracting holiday season. While this is understandable, neglecting non-pressing serious issues usually leads people to react later during times of crisis by asking - "how did things get so bad without anybody noticing, or how did we (or usually "they") let this happen!?" The appropriate time to observe, react, and adjust however is before things develop into problems, particularly in the sphere of international affairs where developments take place over a much longer period of time than do events in our personal lives.

It is unfortunate then that there is no serious debate over the wisdom of the latest SOFA. Not just because published timetables are strategically problematic from a military standpoint. No, it is unfortunate because the SOFA neglects entirely the main geopolitical danger that has existed in the US approach towards a post-Saddam Iraq from the very beginning of President Bush's grand plans to apply his doctrine of preemption to Iraq. Go back to before everyone forgot about Iraq, back before everyone was obsessing over the political fallout from the seeming hopelessness of ever defeating the Al Queada/Baathist insurgency - before even the anxiety of the invasion itself. What were the two biggest questions on everyone's mind? Did Saddam have WMD's (and if so, what we should have done about it) and what we would do with a post-Saddam Iraq?

In particular, the question about the day after was a less a concern for the internal stability of the country (the focus of all discussion ever since the insurgency stole the show), but of how viable the country would be after we got rid of Saddam. Would the country be able to hold its own in the dangerous neighborhood of the Middle East? What would be the consequences for the region of the sudden power vacuum generated by a Saddamless Iraq? The prospect of destabilizing the region was a real concern given the precarious balance that existed between Iraq and Iran in their perpetual conflict. Remove one of the two sides pushing on the door, and the door was liable to fly through the wall.

Somehow though this issue was completely forgotten in the mad scramble to address the problems within the country, not to mention the neglect that came from the President's ideological tunnel vision which was only concerned with installing a democracy in the Arab world as a counterweight to "terrorism." (Let's leave aside for another time the problems with how this was supposed to work, seeing as "terrorists" have and will continue to win elections, e.g. Hamas.) The effect of all these distractions was a complete disregard for the prospect that Iraq's neighbors, and in particular Iran, would seek to exert control, quietly, over the country. The situation in Iraq today is as a result unstable for two reasons: the influences of foreign powers, mostly Iran, subverting the country from within along the Syrian-Lebanese model, and the internal fissures between the country's non-too friendly factions; Sunni Kurds, Sunni Arabs, and Shiite Arabs. (Parenthetically, promoting self determination is one thing, foisting a single democracy on three peoples who don't exactly get along just because the British decided to draw a map after WWI quite another.)

Though Americans can feel legitimate satisfaction and relief from having finally succeeded in stabilizing the country from its long and bloody insurgency, and even from "establishing" a democracy where Saddam Hussein once reigned, none of these accomplishments has any real bearing on the larger issue of Iran's silent takeover of its formal arch rival. In fact, perversely, the success of the US in quelling the post-Saddam tremors in the country, and in establishing a democracy, has paved the way for the Iranians to consolidate their hold over a country now naked of many of its former defenses, e.g. Saddam and a bristling Sunni-Shiite fault line.

For all of these reasons, serious debate and discussion are needed to asses whether the defeat of the insurgency constitutes a victory that justifies a withdrawal of US forces. At stake is the fate of the entire region. Iran has already greatly expanded its influence throughout the region, from Hamas in Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, to the Syrian Iranian alliance and Iran's nuclear weapons program. The US cannot afford to lose Iraq as well by abandoning the country, which is already largely defenseless against Iranian subversion, but which will be entirely helpless against Iran on its own, without throwing away the past five years of efforts and sacrifices and risking an unchallenged Iranian hegemony stretching from Afghanistan to Lebanon. If the SOFA is not reevaluated, countries like Jordan and Saudi Arabia will be next, though they will be totally incapable of contending with a super sized Iran backed by nuclear weapons. Urgency and clarity in evaluating and debating the SOFA is desperately needed if the world does not wish to wake up from its current reverie to an Iranian behemoth at Europe's doorstep.