Meanwhile, in the Iraq War ...

The Libya War and Afghanistan War have pushed news from Iraq to a lower priority. But Gareth Porter reports in Maliki's Doubts Threaten Post-2011 Troop Presence Plan Inter Press Service 04/06/2011 that the Obama Administration has gone along with the Pentagon's request to keep combat troops in Iraq past the 2011 deadline. But that deadline is dictated by the terms of the Status of Forces (SOF) agreement with the pro-Iranian government in Baghdad under Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. As Porter puts it:

President Barack Obama has given his approval to a Pentagon plan to station U.S. combat troops in Iraq beyond 2011, provided that Iraqi Premier Nouri al-Maliki officially requests it, according to U.S. and Iraqi sources.

But both U.S. and Iraqi officials acknowledge that Maliki may now be reluctant to make the official request. Maliki faces severe political constraints at home, and his government is being forced by recent moves by Saudi Arabia to move even closer to Iran.

And it is no longer taken for granted by U.S. or Iraqi officials that Maliki can survive the rising tide of opposition through the summer.

The Pentagon doesn't seem to want to leave anyplace they're had a serious ground war. Why the Obama Administration went along with the idea for Iraq is a different question. With the Afghanistan War and now the Libya War on his hands, wouldn't it make plain sense for him to shut down the combat role in Iraq as agreed? As Porter reports, this may have been part of his thinking, or at least his justification behind the scenes to Iraq officials:

Several days after Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak, the key U.S. strategic ally in the Middle East for 30 years, was forced by the pro-democracy movement to resign in early February, Iraqi officials were informed that Obama was now more convinced than before that he could not afford to be tagged with having "lost" Iraq, the intelligence official told IPS.

But Porter explains various reasons, not least of them the opposition of Muqtada al-Sadr, that Maliki's government may not agree. And he writes:

If the Iraqi premier does not ask for U.S. troops to remain after the expiration of the November 2008 U.S.-Iraq withdrawal agreement, it will be a major blow to the assertion made over the past three years portraying Maliki as an ally of the United States who wants U.S. help in keeping Iraq out of the Iranian sphere of influence.

The reality is much less favourable to the rosy view of U.S. influence in Iraq. Press accounts have revealed that key events in that period - including the selection of Maliki as prime minister in 2006, the 2007 ceasefires in Basrah and Baghdad, and the renewed political alliance between Maliki and Sadr in 2010 - were all brokered by Gen. Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. [my emphasis]

Iran has been a de facto ally of the United States since we invaded in 2003. Iran wanted a stable, Shi'a-led government in Baghdad. And the US realized it was something they had to accept.

He also points to an aspect of the events in Bahrain that affects Iraq:

But the Saudi dispatch of combat troops to Bahrain last month to repress the pro-democracy movement that represented the Shi'a majority in that country may have made a move toward the United States difficult, if not impossible for Maliki.

That aggressive Saudi action against the Shi'a of Bahrain has made it clearer that Saudi Arabia must be regarded as Iraq's primary enemy, according to the Iraqi intelligence official.

But it is only part of a larger problem of Iraqi conflict with Saudi Arabia. Iraqi intelligence has indications that the original al Qaeda in Iraq network is in the process of leaving the country for Libya, but that another organisation now operating under the name of al Qaeda in Iraq is actually a Saudi-supported Baathist paramilitary group run from Jordan by a former high-ranking general under Saddam Hussein. [my emphasis]

Now, this is from an anonymous Iraqi intelligence official, so it can't be regarded as definitive evidence. But Gareth Porter has a good record on his reporting and research on the Iraq War.

Tags: gareth porter, iraq war