Al-Maliki Negotiates a Treaty with US
Kurds Defiant on Oil Deals
The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is negotiating a formal bilateral treaty with the United States. The question is whether the agreement will be submitted to parliament for ratification, and whether al-Maliki will be able to get a majority of parliamentarians to vote for it if so. Much of the work of the Iraqi government is never put through parliament and is just implemented by fiat by the executive.
Iraq's Kurds are undeterred by the warning by federal Oil Minister Hussein Shahristani that contracts signed by the Kurdistan Regional Government with foreign oil companies are null and void unless they are also signed by the federal government. The Kurds say they will go on making the contracts.
Marjorie Cohn on the need to keep fighting against the idea of a new war with Iran.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 11/27/2007 12:30:00 AM
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9 Comments:
Maliki's approval has never been an obstacle to the occupation. He is a nobody made somebody by the US, and wouldn't last a week without the occupation. In any case, if he objects, the US can replace him effortlessly.
The obstacle has been the Iraqi attacks, and the clear rejection of the occupation by the populace. These won't change by Maliki's signature. If anything, this agreement to station US troops will work against both Maliki and the US.
The Free Officers who ended the British-backed reign in 1958 cited the Baghdad Pact of 1955 as a tipping point for toppling the Iraqi regime then.
Candidates for future American policy makers should be given two more tests: 1) Autism, and 2) A mental age below 10.
The juxtaposition of the first two items in the post is striking. In each case, the operating dynamic seems to be, as it seems to be also in Bush v. US battle, "who's going to stop me?"
It would not be a treaty unless he goes through Congress and gets 2/3 approval by the Senate. It is still binding by US law as an Executive agreement, or a Congressional-Executive agreement where he has to get a majority vote in both the House and Senate.
My bet is he goes the Unitary Executive way. No vote for Congress. Pressure is off the Democrats.
At TPM Muckraker they've linked to a White House release of the text of the agreement.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/11/20071126-11.html
This agreement is a lot less impressive than the press descriptions of it.
The basic point is that the US is committed to ending the UN mandate after 2008, committed to ending Iraq's Chapter VII sanctions which means Iraq will be as legally free to rebuild its armed forces as any other nation and Iraq is committed to nothing specific.
The actual negotiations happen next year, when Iraq is not under the gun of a theoretical sudden pullout and there is nothing here that says or implies that the final agreement will not need Parliamentary approval - and we've seen how the oil law is doing.
Long-term foreign basing is a thousand times more provocative and ten times more controversial than a US-ghostwritten oil law.
I actually think Maliki got the better deal, which is what I expect when any non-moron sits across a negotiating table from the current US administration.
This agreement, contrary to every press report I've read, looks a lot more like a defeat for long-term base advocates than a victory.
Will the US Senate get a crack at this treaty?
If one believes this AP article...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071126/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq
... the supposed deal (which is really not a deal between two countries, but rather between two leaders, neither of whom has any credibility at home) appears to be a total sellout of Iraq's sovereignty, with plans for something like 50,000 US troops to remain in the country in permanent bases, and with special protections and priveleged for US commercial interests in Iraq.
And here's the question I would put to the American People, if I could: "If you all think it's such a great idea for the United States to effectively annex Iraq, then why don't we propose statehood for Iraq?"
The AP article I linked to above is a pretty amazing bit of propaganda. Incredibly, even though Congress has to ratify any deal made with Iraq, as per the Constitution (not that anyone pays any attention to something as quaint and old fashioned as the US Constitution anymore), and Congress is controlled by the Democrats, the AP article about this deal does not offer any evaluations of the deal from the Democrats, but DOES offer evaluations from two Republican Senators!!
As much as I castigate the Dems for what I consider their spineless, doormat behavior and mentality, I have to say, it's got to be hard to be anything BUT a doormat when the media don't even give you a chance to get whatever message you might have to the American People.
"Much of the work of the Iraqi government is never put through parliament and is just implemented by fiat by the executive."
They must be taking lessons from the Bush administration.
You link "Marjorie Cohn on the need to keep fighting a new war with Iran."
Bushism must be contagious. Don't you mean "opposing a new war with Iran"?
Bruce Ackerman has an Op-Ed in today's LATimes (11/29/07) to the effect that Congress has to be involved, either by the Senate for the treaty approval process or by a majority vote in the Senate and House on a bill supporting the "agreement."
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