By Cernig
Two Iraqi Sunni lawmakers - Sheikh Khalaf al-Ulayyan from Sunni Anbar Province and Prof. Nadeem al-Jaberi from Shiite Baghdad - testified before a congressional foreign affairs subcommittee hearing today.
The hearing quickly became a case of the two Iraqi parliamentarians vs the GOP on the question of permanent occupation, as they told Congress stuff the Republicans really didn't want to hear - stuff that directly contradicts McSame's plans for Iraq. Spencer Ackerman has four posts - here, here, here and here.
The two told their audience that the US doesn't need permanent bases in Iraq to provide defense against external aggressors - the ones America already has in neighbouring countries will do just fine. That any security deal should wait until US troops have first withdrawn from Iraq. That the US should begin a phased withdrawal based around a rebuilding of the security forces (again) which they say are riddled with sectarian militias. That there are no threats to iraq should the US withdraw and that Iraqis "are capable of solving our own problems in the end." That the Surge didn't reduce violence in Iraq - the Awakening did. And finally, that the occupation is the thing that drives the violence in the first place.
"As soon as the troops have withdrawn, it doesn't make sense for these groups to exist," Jabari added. "It is my belief that when troops withdraw these groups will not bear arms any longer. For as long as we have foreign troops on our land, these gangs will increase in number, they will hold onto their goals even longer... So I say the presence of foreign troops are actually serving these groups."
You really need to read Spencer's posts. Brandon Friedman at VetVoice says "They'll blow your mind (unless you've been to Iraq. . .in which case you should already know this)."
Update Ron Beasley just emailled me this Reuters report - over half the Iraqi parliament have signed a letter to Congress saying they won't support any status of forces agreement unless it sets out a clear timetable for US troops must leave Iraq.
Rep. William Delahunt, a Massachusetts Democrat and Iraq war opponent, released excerpts from a letter he was handed by Iraqi parliamentarians laying down conditions for the security pact that the Bush administration seeks with Iraq.
..."The majority of Iraqi representatives strongly reject any military-security, economic, commercial, agricultural, investment or political agreement with the United States that is not linked to clear mechanisms that obligate the occupying American military forces to fully withdraw from Iraq," the letter to the leaders of Congress said.
The signatures represented just over half the membership of Iraq's parliament, said Delahunt, a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee chairman.
But as Patrick Cockburn reports, that's not the game plan Bush has. There's going to be a messy showdown over this.
I am highly skeptical of arguments that armed Iraqi groups will lay down their weapons and give everyone a pony when the US withdraws. It would be pretty much without precedent in the history of hollow states gripped by civil war. Looking at historical precedents, US withdrawal will cause the groups who are currently interested in killing US troops to diversify into organized crime and into killing other Iraqis.
ReplyDeleteThe only groups highly likely to leave the field of battle are foreign Jihadis, who make up a small minority of fighters in Iraq anyway.
Curmudegeon --- your concerns of armed groups migrating to interecine fighting and organized crime are about five years too late... that has already happened.
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