Opinion | Columnists
Obama should seek UN role in pullout
The US president-elect would do well to consult the international organisation and, in particular, regional powers when negotiating the withdrawal from Iraq.
- By George S. Hishmeh, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:16 December 3, 2008
- Image Credit: Illustration: Luis Vazquez/Gulf News
At first glance, one would think that President George W. Bush has pulled the rug from under the feet of his successor, Barack Obama, when the Iraqi Parliament last week endorsed the Security of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that the US and Iraq have been negotiating for 11 months.
In accordance with the accord, American troops now numbering about 150,000 can stay three more years in this oil-rich and strife-torn Arab country. Evacuation will have to be completed by January 1, 2012.
Although Americans were elated by the news, they ought not to count their eggs before they hatch and they may still have to depend on Obama to help them out of this costly and unpopular war. For one, the Iraqis have been promised that a national referendum on the agreement will take place in the summer and should they vote against it, a faint possibility, the accord will be nixed. Consequently, the American troops will have to leave by mid 2010, about 18 months ahead of the negotiated deadline.
Opposition to the Iraqi-American agreement is serious in Iraq because a sizeable portion of the public believes, as voiced by one lawmaker, a supporter of the anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr, that the new accord "legitimises the occupation," now in its sixth year.
"It is quite apparent that the Bush administration will be leaving the Obama administration with a messy, complicated and unstable situation in Iraq," the National Security Network, a policy group made up mostly of Democrats who have sharply criticised Bush's policies, said in a statement.
In turn, President-elect Obama has repeatedly promised - and he once again reiterated his pledge last week - that the US troops will leave Iraq within 16 months after he takes office next January. But he, too, has allowed himself some wiggle room; first he will have to talk to his army commanders and will also assess the capability of Iraqi troops to safeguard Iraqis.
His nuanced stance has disappointed some of his supporters. Barbara Bearden, spokeswoman for Peace Action, a national group which has started a "No soldier left behind" programme, observed that "the devil is in the details; he has been vague on when his withdrawal date would be."
But, Hillary Clinton, who has just been designated by Obama as the next secretary of state, had argued in an article last December in Foreign Affairs that for the US to meet its world-wide challenges it has "to replenish American power by getting out of Iraq...." In her lengthy article, she went on to explain that, among other things, an American withdrawal from Iraq "will enable us to play a constructive role in a renewed Middle East peace process that would mean security and normal relations for Israel and the Palestinians."
She continued: "The fundamental elements of a final agreement have been clear since 2000: a Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank in return for a declaration that the conflict is over, recognition of Israel's right to exist, guarantees of Israeli security, diplomatic recognition of Israel, and normalisation of its relations with Arab states." US diplomacy, she wrote, "is critical in helping to resolve the conflict".
The other side of the Iraqi coin is not as attractive. Anthony Cordesman, a strategist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a respected and non-partisan institution, believes that Iraq "will almost certainly need a stabilising US military presence for at least several years to come," he wrote in a just-issued report. Iraq will also "need a substantial US military advisory effort for several years longer," because, in his opinion, Iraq's force "are not yet ready to provide the security and stability that Iraq needs".
Some truth
There may be some truth in all what has been said here but the bottom line remains that continued American (or coalition) presence in Iraq is not tolerable and certainly will not pacify the region. Iraq has been severely crushed thanks to the US-led invasion: About four million Iraqis have taken refuge in neighboring countries besides the tens of thousands who have perished as a result of the internal strife.
Obama seems eager to revive the image of the UN in the US, especially UN peacekeeping missions, as seen in his appointment of one of his closest advisers and a fellow opponent of the war in Iraq, Susan E. Rice, as US ambassador to the international organisation. It would thus be logical if his administration were to seek a UN a role in monitoring the American pullout from Iraq and full restoration of Iraqi sovereignty, a step would add certainly credence to US intentions. In fact, he would do well if he were to suggest further that representatives of Arab and other Mideast states bordering Iraq be included in this effort.
George Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist.
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