Delaying withdrawal, delaying the inevitable

By Gregg Carlstrom

Iraq's January 21 election appears headed for an almost certain delay -- which means Pentagon officials will likely step up their calls for a delayed withdrawal from Iraq.

The backstory: Iraq's parliament passed an election law, to great fanfare (and congratulations from President Obama), earlier this month. But last week, Tariq al-Hashimi -- one of Iraq's vice presidents, and a Sunni Arab -- vetoed the law. Al-Hashimi thought it didn't do enough to protect the rights of the two million Iraqi refugees (many of them Sunnis) living abroad, mostly in Syria and Jordan.

The election law sets aside 5 percent of seats in parliament for internally displaced persons and minority groups. Al-Hashimi wanted that clause amended to include refugees, and he wanted the set-aside raised to 15 percent.

After a few days of delay, parliament approved an amended law this afternoon. It guarantees Iraqi refugees the right to vote -- but it doesn't increase the set-aside, nor does it give refugees a share of that set-aside. Their votes will be counted in their home provinces.

The amended law also changes the formula for apportioning the other 95 percent of legislative seats. I'll spare you the details; suffice it to say Sunni lawmakers aren't happy with the change, which they think will reduce their representation in parliament.

That means al-Hashimi is likely to veto the amended law, too. Parliament could override a veto with a three-fifths majority -- but parliament has struggled to even reach a quorum in recent weeks. 125 of Iraq's 275 lawmakers didn't show up for today's vote on the election law.

Against that backdrop, Pentagon officials keep threatening to delay the U.S. drawdown in Iraq. They consider the months immediately following the election to be especially dangerous, and they want to keep a large U.S. military presence in Iraq until that window closes. Michele Flournoy, the undersecretary of defense for policy, told Congress last month that the withdrawal timetable is "not rigid." Gen. Ray Odierno also hinted at a delay last month.

One could highlight a number of arguments against a delayed withdrawal. There's the political: Obama ran against the Iraq war, and extending U.S. involvement in that war wouldn't be popular. (Then again, Iraq has largely fallen off the political radar screen, so maybe no one would notice?) There's the practical: Iraq will be troubled for years to come, and it will always offer some "compelling" reason not to withdraw on time. There's the simple fact that most Iraqis want the U.S. to withdraw.

Most compelling, to me, is the way this election law crisis highlights a fundamental contradiction of interests. The debate has brought to the surface many of Iraq's unresolved issues: The status of Kirkuk; the Arab-Kurdish divide; the persistent feeling of Sunni alienation. But the U.S. isn't giving parliament any time to resolve those differences; it wants Iraq to hurry up and pass an election law so it can start withdrawing.

If parliament approves a new law quickly, it will paper over those differences without actually resolving them; if it doesn't pass a law, and the election is delayed, then a delayed withdrawal means the U.S. will continue to enforce an artificial stability in Iraq.

The longer the U.S. stays in Iraq, the longer it delays the inevitable. Iraqis need to hash out these issues -- hopefully through the political process, though I fear they'll do it through force -- and they're not going to be resolved until the U.S. withdraws.