BAGHDAD — The inability of the Obama administration to reach an agreement on a continued U.S. troop presence in Iraq will increase pressure from all directions on the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, testing the resiliency of this country’s fragile national institutions and a political
class that had long relied on a U.S. safety net.
Even as President Barack Obama announced Friday that all U.S. forces would be home before the Christmas holidays, a speedup of the U.S. withdrawal that had been scheduled to end Dec. 31, Turkish forces were still fighting inside Iraq, retaliating for guerrilla attacks launched from the semi-autonomous Kurdish region — just one of the international entanglements that Iraq soon will be left on its own to contend with.
And there are any number of internal disputes that the U.S. has played a critical role in mediating for years that soon will be left only to Iraqis to sort out.
To be sure, no one can rule out the possibility that Iraqis will pull together to overcome disputes that for years have appeared insoluble. It is even conceivable that Iraq could become a beacon for democracy in a Persian Gulf region now ruled by a clerical regime in Iran and near-absolute monarchies in the Arab states.
Ahmed Chalabi, the Shiite politician who helped persuade the Bush administration to invade Iraq in 2003, on Friday welcomed the end of the U.S. presence, calling the U.S. decision to stop talking about staying “a very wise move.” He portrayed the reality check Iraq is about to face as a positive development.
But if things go badly, Iraq could come apart in ways that are sure to involve Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia. All are major players in the region, all are neighbors of Iraq, and all have ethnic, sectarian, cultural or political ties to substantial elements of the population inside Iraq’s multi-ethnic state.
An unfortunate turn of events also would affect the supply of oil from Iraq, which has enormous potential as a major player in the energy market, as well as Saudi Arabia and Iran, the first and second biggest producers.
For the United States, Saudi Arabia and Israel, the biggest threat to Iraq comes from Iran. The giant Shiite Muslim nation, which uses its clout regularly with the friendly Shiite-led government in Baghdad, sustained hundreds of thousands of casualties in its eight-year conflict with Saddam’s Iraq. No one can deny that Iran has a legitimate interest in Iraq being a good neighbor.
But heavy Iranian involvement in Iraq’s elections and the formation of its present government, its reputed arming of extremist Shiite militias in southern Iraq and Iran’s insistence that Iraq’s foreign policy bend to its wishes have aroused anxiety among practically everyone else in the region.
To Iraq’s north, the continuing pro-democracy revolt in Syria presents an unsettling scenario. Iran, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, wants Iraq to support Assad, a member of the Alawite sect, which is related to Shiite Islam.
But Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia wants Assad overthrown and would be happy to see majority rule by Syria’s long repressed Sunni population.
If the current unrest to the north evolves into full civil war, weapons will no doubt flow to either side through Iraq, and might easily revive sectarian war here.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
