Al-Maliki Will Not Sign Security Agreement
McClatchy reports that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has reneged on the security agreement that his office negotiated with the Bush administration, and now says he will not sign it and will not submit it to parliament. Instead, it is likely that Iraq will go back to the United Nations Security Council for a further mandate of six months to a year for the multi-national forces.
Aljazeera English reports on the security pact.
Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports in Arabic that the Christian representative in parliament is acusing a unit of the Iraq army,which has significant numbers of Kurds, of being behind attack on Christians in Mosul that have forced thousands of Christians to flee instability.
Mark MacKinnon profiles the American University in Iraq (Sulaymaniya),
Despite all the hype about it being calm now, Iraq faces significant violence:
'Last month, 98 Iraqi policemen were killed. On about two days out of every three, a bomb killed two or more people. Over all, those bombings killed 164 people and wounded 366 others. These and other attacks killed 500 Iraqi civilians, about 17 a day. '
While the Bush administration was using Abu Nidal's presence in Baghdad to argue that the Baath government was dirty with terrorists, in fact the CIA was running him as an agent.
The headline says it all: "Mentally Unstable Soldiers Redoplyed to Iraq."
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 10/25/2008 12:07:00 AM
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5 Comments:
Too Funny!! BushCo says the SOFA is to be like this or there will be no SOFA. And then they act surprised when Maliki, predictibly IMO, rejects the dictat, citing the reality that it will never be ratified. The Iraqi people Spoke through their leader and said NO!! And this whole drama is being reported on newspapers's deep, inner pages, it at all, which is no surprise at it favors Obama as election day draws nearer and the markets fall ever more.
Maliki's decision allows us to turn a corner in the drama's plot and ponder future possibilities. I envision an alliance between Maliki and Chavez. Can you say multipolar world?
I just had a look at the US interest on Google for our lethal enemies: Bin Laden, Taliban, IEDs, Al-Qaeda, suicide bombers. See the result in graphs for 2004-present at my Word Face-Off blog.
Wow - I might have to rethink my negative opinion of Maliki. The fact that he is responding to pressure against this odious agreement and standing up to the U.S. is great. One DOES wonder how much of the response is to pressure from Iran, but for now it is enough that he is pushing back.
For what it is worth, according to a fairly well-connected Kurdish source the Kurds are entirely behind the attacks on Christians, and this seems to be what the Christians are reporting as well.
Christian sources have reported for years serious abuses by the Kurdish militias of Christians in Kurdistan, including various means of preventing Christians from voting in the elections.
The Aljazeera report on the Status of Force agreement in Iraq seem to echo the Washington line that the reason why the agreement is not signed is Iran's interest.
I simply can't imagine that majority of Iraqis be in favor of agreement that gives foreign troops immunity in Iraq. Iraq is about 20 million people, something like a million have died in this conflict. Many innocent folks have been killed as result of American presence. Even if they believe the casualties were not intentional, you would think the wast majority of them would never agree to giving free pass to foreign soldiers.
It may be that Iran and Iraqi population have the same interest here. But it is foolish to say that Iraqis are for this agreement and the only issue is that Iran is not in favor of it.
After all if Bush is not in favor of permanent bases in Iraq, why don't they ask for extension of the UN mandate. As long as there are reason on the ground for the Americans presence, they would be able to extend the mandate. Isn't that what even John McCain been proposing?
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