YESTERDAY’S WITHDRAWAL of United States soldiers from Iraqi towns and cities was more symbolic than real, given that they will continue to train the Iraqi army and may be called back into urban military action if security deteriorates. Yet the timely implementation of the status of forces agreement reached between the outgoing Bush administration and prime minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shia-dominated government represents definite progress towards the restoration of Iraqi sovereignty. That it was also timed to coincide with the first auction of Iraqi oil fields to international companies is also symbolic, representing the potential opening up of its economy to oil majors which will have to respect comparatively tight conditions.
A political rhythm accompanies the security one. Iraqis are due to vote in national parliamentary elections next January, having elected provincial councils earlier this year. That campaign was relatively free of the crippling sectarian conflicts and violence many expected. This allowed more room for competition on how to provide better roads, schools, health and other services rather than on the brutal existential questions that dominated the violent years following the invasion led by the United States in 2003. The hope is that the experience can now be repeated at national level, thereby putting more flesh on Mr al-Maliki’s claim, reiterated yesterday, that this dual security and political process represents a real return of Iraqi sovereignty.
US troops are due to leave Iraq in 2011, according to the current timetable. But it is subject to reservations on both sides, according to the security and political facts on the ground. Despite his opposition to the invasion and his desire to see an end to the occupation, President Obama accepts that these disciplines will determine if the timetable can be met. There are many sceptical voices among well-informed actors and commentators on whether it is possible. Iraq has been wrenched asunder by the experience. Despite the reduced levels of violence, many Iraqis are unreconciled to the political and security outcomes on offer and willing to contest them violently. It is still uncertain whether the emerging political parties are strong enough to combat that, even if more and more Iraqis are convinced it is on balance the better way.
That popular desire to escape from the successive traumas of Saddam Hussein’s totalitarianism, the US invasion, civil war, sectarianism and ethnic cleansing towards a more peaceful, secure and prosperous life should guide the evaluation of yesterday’s events. They represent real progress towards those goals, notwithstanding their definitely limited and symbolic nature. The agreed perspective of eventual US withdrawal from Iraq is welcome, however hedged around it is with continuing political, military and economic conditions and guarantees.
President Obama has put US disengagement from Iraq firmly in the wider regional context of deeper engagement with Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Calibrating his policies on all these fronts will be a huge task.