Why Iraq Is Changing Its Tune On Withdrawal

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki

From Pajamas Media:

In a surprising development, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his national security advisor Mowaffak al-Rubaie made a dramatic shift in their positions in the SOFA negotiations with the US. By referring to the negotiated deal as a “memorandum of understanding” instead of using its official name, they are signalling that are doing more than just taking a tougher stand: they are scrapping all that has been negotiated since February and starting new negotiations for a whole new deal. In other words, Maliki is saying that he wants to negotiate the withdrawal of US forces, not their presence, after the UN mandate expires.

In order to understand why Maliki made this sharp turn from his formerly pragmatic neutral position, we need to examine three issues: the timing of the statements, the place from which they were made, and the parties that made them.

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My Comment: I mentioned last week that with hostilities decreasing, the next battle will be political. In other words ..... this is when the real fun starts. Everyone in Iraq is now positioning themselves for parliamentary elections in the fall.

The U.S. can only play a mediator and security role for now .... at least I hope that this will be the case. For many in Iraq, they may not like the U.S. in their country, but they trust the U.S. more than the other ethnic and religious groups in the country. It is this role that the U.S. can best play in Iraq.