November 20, 2008
Summary
Chaos erupted in the Iraqi parliament for a second day Nov. 20 during a debate over the Status of Forces Agreement, which sets Dec. 31, 2001, as a firm withdrawal date for U.S. troops in Iraq. Iraq’s Cabinet approved the pact on Nov. 16, but the parliament will not vote on it until Nov. 24, and several factors could derail the strategic agreement.
Analysis
Chaos broke out in the Iraqi parliament for a second day Nov. 20 as deliberations over a security pact between the United States and Iraq continued. On Nov. 16, the Iraqi Cabinet passed the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), which sets Dec. 31, 2011, as a firm withdrawal date for U.S. forces in Iraq. The agreement must now pass a Nov. 24 parliament vote before the Iraqi president and his two deputies can officially ratify it.
If the SOFA passes, the United States will have a legally approved military presence in Iraq for at least the next three years to consolidate gains made thus far in the security situation, and to sustain a blocking force against neighboring Iran. While U.S. authority in Iraq will be substantially circumscribed under the revised draft of the SOFA, the pact sets in place a strategic partnership between Baghdad and Washington for the longer term, thereby serving U.S. interests in maintaining a foothold in the region and keeping the Iranians at bay.
Though the SOFA has made considerable progress in the past week, there are still plenty of obstacles that could throw the strategic agreement off track. The Iraqi government still has not decided whether the legislature will have to approve the SOFA by a simple majority or a two-thirds majority, or put it to a public referendum. The Iraqi politicians who oppose the agreement, most notably those loyal to Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, also have a strategy in play to stall the agreement. To this end, the al-Sadrites started up a ruckus in parliament Nov. 19 when they tried to drown out the second reading of the draft by yelling and even scuffling with lawmakers, resulting in one al-Sadrite getting tackled by the foreign minister’s security guard.
Besides making a big show of protest in parliament, the al-Sadrites are intentionally trying to delay the SOFA proceedings with the knowledge that many Iraqi parliamentarians will be leaving over the next few days for Saudi Arabia to perform the annual Hajj. If the al-Sadrites can stall deliberations on the agreement, they could deny the pro-SOFA parliamentary bloc a quorum to approve the deal.
Through a message relayed by one of his aides Nov. 20, Iraq’s top Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, admonished Iraqi Shiite parliamentarians for resorting to such tactics and for leaving for the Hajj early, accusing them of directly defying his orders. Al-Sistani had earlier given his typically ambiguous endorsement of the SOFA and is now feeling pressured to take a harder line against those opposing the pact. Further complicating matters, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, leader of Iraq’s largest Shiite party, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), is very close to dying of cancer. ISCI’s support in parliament is critical to the SOFA’s passage, but if al-Hakim dies in the coming days, the mourning period has a good chance of disrupting the vote.
If Iraq’s parliament does not pass the SOFA by the Nov. 24 deadline, then the U.N. mandate that currently authorizes coalition forces to stay in Iraq and expires Dec. 31, 2008, would need to be extended. An extension of the U.N. mandate would not require a parliamentary vote — just the approval of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the three members of the presidency council and Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani. If the United States has to resort to extending the U.N. mandate instead of implementing the SOFA, it will be up to the incoming U.S. administration to pick up negotiations on the security pact where they left off.
Meanwhile, the Iranians appear to be playing a complex game. On one hand, Iran’s judiciary chief gave his indirect endorsement of the SOFA after it passed in Iraq’s Cabinet, signaling that Tehran was satisfied with the revised draft of the agreement that included a hardened date for withdrawal. At the same time, Iran’s influential parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, has issued statements calling on Iraqi leaders to continue their resistance against the security pact.
In many ways, Iran is operating from a weak position. Though it has strong political connections inside Baghdad, many of Iraq’s Shiite parties, including the ISCI, have maintained a careful balancing act between Washington and Tehran and are acting in their own interests. After spending months lambasting the SOFA and bribing and threatening Iraqi officials, the Iranians cannot let it appear that this deal was imposed on them. At the same time, Iran has been heavily involved in back-channel negotiations to influence the language of the SOFA text to ensure that severe limitations are placed on U.S. forces in Iraq. Whether or not the SOFA passes, Iran needs to create the impression that it is largely calling the shots on the deal so it can set the stage for negotiations with the incoming U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s administration.
