1 Boring Old Man

Credit where credit is due: Iraqis ended the Iraq war
Open Left
by: Chris Bowers
Aug 02, 2010

President Obama’s speech today about American withdraw from Iraq continuing on schedule (more or less) is a relief.  His continuing public commitment to complete withdrawal of all military forces by the end of next year, as per the Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government, is to be applauded. From the speech:

As agreed to with the Iraqi government, we will maintain a transitional force until we remove all our troops from Iraq by the end of next year.

This is an important commitment, given that there are powerful figures within both the military and the civilian foreign policy apparatus–such as Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michelle Flournoy–who favor a long-term residual American military presence of tens of thousands of troops.

Still, as the withdrawal continues, and as the Obama administration takes credit for fulfilling a campaign promise by withdrawing, it is important to place credit for the coming end of American military involvement in Iraq where it belongs: with Iraqis.  Until the status of forces agreement was signed in late 2008, none of the domestic efforts to end American military involvement in Iraq had any success.  Consider:

• The wide-ranging protest movement against the war in Iraq from 2002-2005 may have helped increase public opposition to the war, but did not stop or slow it.
• Democrats won control of Congress in the 2006 elections in large measure because of public opposition to the war.  However, not only did they continue to fund the war without any conditions for withdrawal, but the number of American troops in Iraq actually increased during 2007.
• While the leading contenders for the Democratic Presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, were campaigning on a promise to end the war, both actually had plans to leave roughly 60,000 "non-combat" troops in Iraq for an indefinite period of time.

The only thing that stopped the war was the Status of Forces Agreement, which stated no residual troops in Iraq at the end of 2011. The Iraqi government was able to force the United States to agree to no residual forces because the U.S. needed a Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqi government, or else its legal mandate to remain in Iraq would have expired on December 31st, 2008.  With that sort of leverage, the Iraqi government was able to accomplish what no domestic anti-war forces were able to do: end the U.S. military presence in Iraq.

So, while President Obama is indeed fulfilling his campaign promise to partially withdraw from Iraq, it is actually the Iraqis themselves who deserve credit for forcing the United States to legally agree to a complete withdrawal.  Iraqis are the ones who deserve the applause today, because they are the ones who ended the war in Iraq.