Bush forced to rethink plan to keep Iraq bases
Bush's plans to establish permanent military bases in Iraq appear to have been put on hold after the horrified Iraqi reaction to the leaked plans.
Senior Iraqi officials are making it clear that they wish to see a reduced US footprint in Iraq with many calling for the US to leave Iraq altogether. And time is not on Bush's side as the UN Security Council mandate approving the US/UK presence in Iraq expires at the end of the year.The proposed terms of the impending deal, which were first revealed in The Independent, have had a predictably explosive political effect inside Iraq. Negotiations between Washington and Baghdad grew fraught, with Iraqi politicians denouncing US demands to maintain a permanent grip on the country through the establishment of permanent military bases.
Officials complained that the plan which allows US troops to occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, would turn Iraq into a colony of the US, and create the conditions for unending conflict both in Iraq and the Middle East.
With Washington's Iraqi allies rising up in revolt against the plans, Mr Bush ordered a negotiating shift this weekend after speaking to Mr Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister. "Now the American position is much more positive and more flexible than before," a leading Iraqi negotiator in the talks was quoted as saying.
So it is highly uncharacteristic for Bush to back down like this, what's he really playing at?
President Bush, who is on a farewell tour of Europe, wants a new agreement sealed by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory in Iraq and say his 2003 invasion has been vindicated before he leaves office.
That's beyond delusional, it's bordering on sociopathic.
And, having now apparently dropped his ridiculous attempt to turn Iraq into a US carrier in the Middle East, Bush is willing to make any kind of deal so that can claim victory. The problem for Bush is that no deal may be forthcoming with Maliki's government.
Sami al-Askari, a senior Shia politician close to Mr Maliki told The Washington Post: "The Americans are making demands that would lead to the colonisation of Iraq ... If we can't reach a fair agreement, many people think we should say, 'Goodbye, US troops. We don't need you here any more.'"So it certainly sounds as if Maliki is playing hard ball, refusing to bow to Bush's ridiculous demands.Momentum is also growing within the Maliki administration for the US to leave altogether. Mr Maliki was in Iran this week where the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told him not to sign up to any long-term security deals with Washington.
Iraqi sovereignty will not be strengthened by turning Iraq into a base for future US operations in the Middle East, especially not ones against Iran; which is, I suspect, why Bush wants to maintain those bases in the country.The agreement is being negotiated by David Satterfield, the US State Department's top adviser on Iraq, who still maintains it can be initialled by a July deadline which Mr Bush set last year last year. "It's doable," he told reporters in Baghdad. "We think it's an achievable goal."
At a news conference, Mr Satterfield kept repeating that the US wants only to create a more independent Iraq. "We want to see Iraqi sovereignty strengthened, not weakened," he said.
So now Bush will have to go back to the drawing board. However, it is so unusual to see him backing down that one has to question why he feels the need to do so. And the notion that he is negotiating in order to declare "victory" before he leaves office comes across as an especially sick joke.
I know he believes that reality is what he states it to be, but in this instance he's simply taking the piss. We all know what military victory looks like, and it doesn't look like present day Iraq.
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