WASHINGTON -- The barbarism in Mumbai and the economic crisis at home
have largely overshadowed an otherwise singular event: the ratification
of military and strategic cooperation agreements between Iraq and the
United States.
They must not pass unnoted. They were certainly noted by Iran, which
fought fiercely to undermine the agreements. Tehran understood how a
formal U.S.-Iraqi alliance endorsed by a broad Iraqi consensus
expressed in a freely elected parliament changes the strategic balance
in the region.
For the United States, it represents the single most important
geopolitical advance in the region since Henry Kissinger turned Egypt
from a Soviet client into an American ally. If we don't blow it with
too hasty a withdrawal from Iraq, we will have turned a chronically
destabilizing enemy state at the epicenter of the Arab Middle East into
an ally.
Also largely overlooked at home was the sheer wonder of the procedure
that produced Iraq's consent: classic legislative maneuvering with no
more than a tussle or two -- tame by international standards (see
YouTube: "Best Taiwanese Parliament Fights Of All Time!") -- over the
most fundamental issues of national identity and direction.
The only significant opposition bloc was the Sadrists, a mere 30 seats
out of 275. The ostensibly pro-Iranian religious Shiite parties
resisted Tehran's pressure and championed the agreement. As did the
Kurds. The Sunnis put up the greatest fight. But their concern was that
America would be withdrawing too soon, leaving them subject to
overbearing and perhaps even vengeful Shiite dominance.
The Sunnis, who only a few years ago had boycotted provincial
elections, bargained with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, trying to
exploit his personal stake in agreements he himself had negotiated.
They did not achieve their maximum objectives. But they did get formal
legislative commitments for future consideration of their grievances,
from amnesty to further relaxation of the de-Baathification laws.
That any of this democratic give-and-take should be happening in a
peaceful parliament just two years after Iraq's descent into sectarian
hell is in itself astonishing. Nor is the setting of a withdrawal date
terribly troubling. The deadline is almost entirely symbolic. U.S.
troops must be out by Dec. 31, 2011 -- the weekend before the Iowa
caucuses, which, because God is merciful, will arrive again only in the
very fullness of time. Moreover, that date is not just distant but
flexible. By treaty, it can be amended. If conditions on the ground
warrant, it will be.
True, the war is not over. As Gen. David Petraeus repeatedly insists,
our (belated) successes in Iraq are still fragile. There has already
been an uptick in terror bombings, which will undoubtedly continue as
what's left of al-Qaeda, the Sadrist militias and the
Iranian-controlled "special groups" try to disrupt January's provincial
elections.
The more long-term danger is that Iraq's reborn central government
becomes too strong and, by military or parliamentary coup, the current
democratic arrangements are dismantled by a renewed dictatorship that
abrogates the alliance with the United States.
Such disasters are possible. But if our drawdown is conducted with the
same acumen as was the surge, not probable. A self-sustaining,
democratic and pro-American Iraq is within our reach. It would have two
hugely important effects in the region.
First, it would constitute a major defeat for Tehran, the putative
winner of the Iraq War according to the smart set. Iran's client,
Moqtada al-Sadr, still hiding in Iran, was visibly marginalized in
parliament -- after being militarily humiliated in Basra and Baghdad by
the new Iraqi security forces. Moreover, the major religious Shiite
parties were the ones who negotiated, promoted and assured passage of
the strategic alliance with the U.S., against the most determined
Iranian opposition.
Second is the regional effect of the new political entity on display in
Baghdad -- a flawed yet functioning democratic polity with
unprecedented free speech, free elections and freely competing
parliamentary factions. For this to happen in the most important Arab
country besides Egypt can, over time (over generational time, the
timescale of the war on terror), alter the evolution of Arab society.
It constitutes our best hope for the kind of fundamental
political-cultural change in the Arab sphere that alone will bring
about the defeat of Islamic extremism. After all, newly sovereign Iraq
is today more engaged in the fight against Arab radicalism than any
country on earth, save the United States -- with which, mirabile dictu,
it has now thrown in its lot.
