---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Steven L. Robinson <srobin21@comcast.net>
Date: Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 10:55 AM
Subject: [bangla-vision] Iraq - Maliki's Doubts Threaten Post-2011 Troop Presence Plan
Maliki's Doubts Threaten Post-2011 Troop Presence Plan
By Gareth Porter*
Inter Press Service
April 6, 2010
WASHINGTON - 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.
As early as September 2010, the White House informed the Iraqi
government that it was willing to consider keeping between 15,000 and
20,000 troops in Iraq, in addition to thousands of unacknowledged
Special Operations Forces. But Obama insisted that it could only happen
if Maliki requested it, according to a senior Iraqi intelligence official.
And the White House, which was worried about losing support from the
Democratic Party's anti-war base as Congressional mid-term elections
approached, insisted that the acknowledged troops would have to be put
at least ostensibly under a State Department-run security force.
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.
Proponents of a post-2011 U.S. presence in Iraq within the Obama
administration had taken advantage of the generally accepted view that
the Iraq War was turned around from a dismal failure into a success in
2007-08 by the troop surge and the strategy of Gen. David Petraeus.
The Defence Department officials had indicated to the Iraqis in February
that Obama was now prepared to support the stationing of 17,000 U.S.
combat troops beyond 2011, contingent on Maliki's sending an official
letter of request to Obama, according to the Iraqi intelligence official.
The Pentagon also began making contingency plans for the stationing of
the 3rd Infantry Division in the tense city of Kirkuk, according to the
official.
But since those signs of greater determination by Obama to leave a
semi-permanent military presence in Iraq, the likelihood of Maliki's
making the official request for the troops has come increasingly into
question.
Both U.S. and Iraqi officials now acknowledge that Maliki's need for
Moqtada al-Sadr's political support and the degree to which Sadr has
regained influence in the Shi'a south after having lost it in mid-2008
represent serious political constraints on his position regarding a
possible continuation of the U.S. troop presence.
Sadr's calling on his followers to stay away from a mass demonstration
against Maliki's government Feb. 25 may have saved Maliki's government
from collapsing, the Iraqi intelligence official told IPS.
And Sadr continues to oppose a U.S. military presence in Iraq. After
returning to Iraq in January, Sadr had issued a fiery message
reaffirming that the "first objective should be to get rid of the
occupation".
"If al-Maliki were to ask for U.S. troops, the Sadrists would try to
unseat him," said the Iraqi intelligence official, who added that
Maliki's survival through the summer is no longer taken for granted.
An official U.S. source also suggested that Maliki's government could
collapse before a decision is made on a request for a continuing U.S.
troop presence.
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.
The need to defend against Saudi infiltration of Iraq and be fully
committed on one side of the Sunni-Shi'a divide in the region means that
Maliki has had to move even closer to Iran.
Political unrest in Iraq in the form of popular protests, mainly over
the failure of his government to improve basic services to the
population, has also forced Maliki to reduce the priority his government
had previously put on military cooperation with the U.S.
One indicator of Maliki's intentions is his apparent hesitation about
proceeding with the purchase of 18 of the latest model U.S. F-16 fighter
planes. Complete with advanced air-to-ground and air-to-air munitions,
the deal was estimated to be worth 4.2 billion dollars.
When the deal was officially announced last September, the Defense
Security Cooperation Agency, the Pentagon's office for foreign arms
sales, had crowed that it would "ensure a U.S. military presence in Iraq
for years to come".
In late January, the U.S. command in Iraq was so convinced that Maliki
was about to sign the agreement that it mistakenly put out a press
release announcing that the signing had already taken place.
But after protests began in Baghdad and Karbala in February, Iraqi
government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said the F-16 contract had been
"postponed this year". He explained that the 900 million dollars
required as a down payment on the F- 16 deal would be spent on
increasing the total amount spent on food rations for needy people from
three billion to four billion dollars.
Even though the Iraqi government announced Mar. 1 that higher oil prices
would add eight billion dollars to Iraq's budget this year, the F-16
fighter deal has nevertheless been downgraded to 12 planes, with less
sophisticated weapons systems. The deal is now estimated to be worth
just over one-fourth of the original, with a down payment that has
shrunk to 250 million dollars.
But it is still far from certain that Maliki will sign the deal,
according to the Iraqi military source, because Maliki has decided on
the building of a multi-billion-dollar national electric power grid.
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.
Close security and political relations between Maliki's government and
Iran are based not only on a shared past of Shi'a activism but
continuing conflict between Shi'a states and a Saudi-led anti-Shi'a
coalition.
*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising
in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest
book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in
Vietnam", was published in 2006.
(END/2011)
http://ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=55150
From: Steven L. Robinson <srobin21@comcast.net>
Date: Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 10:55 AM
Subject: [bangla-vision] Iraq - Maliki's Doubts Threaten Post-2011 Troop Presence Plan
Maliki's Doubts Threaten Post-2011 Troop Presence Plan
By Gareth Porter*
Inter Press Service
April 6, 2010
WASHINGTON - 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.
As early as September 2010, the White House informed the Iraqi
government that it was willing to consider keeping between 15,000 and
20,000 troops in Iraq, in addition to thousands of unacknowledged
Special Operations Forces. But Obama insisted that it could only happen
if Maliki requested it, according to a senior Iraqi intelligence official.
And the White House, which was worried about losing support from the
Democratic Party's anti-war base as Congressional mid-term elections
approached, insisted that the acknowledged troops would have to be put
at least ostensibly under a State Department-run security force.
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.
Proponents of a post-2011 U.S. presence in Iraq within the Obama
administration had taken advantage of the generally accepted view that
the Iraq War was turned around from a dismal failure into a success in
2007-08 by the troop surge and the strategy of Gen. David Petraeus.
The Defence Department officials had indicated to the Iraqis in February
that Obama was now prepared to support the stationing of 17,000 U.S.
combat troops beyond 2011, contingent on Maliki's sending an official
letter of request to Obama, according to the Iraqi intelligence official.
The Pentagon also began making contingency plans for the stationing of
the 3rd Infantry Division in the tense city of Kirkuk, according to the
official.
But since those signs of greater determination by Obama to leave a
semi-permanent military presence in Iraq, the likelihood of Maliki's
making the official request for the troops has come increasingly into
question.
Both U.S. and Iraqi officials now acknowledge that Maliki's need for
Moqtada al-Sadr's political support and the degree to which Sadr has
regained influence in the Shi'a south after having lost it in mid-2008
represent serious political constraints on his position regarding a
possible continuation of the U.S. troop presence.
Sadr's calling on his followers to stay away from a mass demonstration
against Maliki's government Feb. 25 may have saved Maliki's government
from collapsing, the Iraqi intelligence official told IPS.
And Sadr continues to oppose a U.S. military presence in Iraq. After
returning to Iraq in January, Sadr had issued a fiery message
reaffirming that the "first objective should be to get rid of the
occupation".
"If al-Maliki were to ask for U.S. troops, the Sadrists would try to
unseat him," said the Iraqi intelligence official, who added that
Maliki's survival through the summer is no longer taken for granted.
An official U.S. source also suggested that Maliki's government could
collapse before a decision is made on a request for a continuing U.S.
troop presence.
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.
The need to defend against Saudi infiltration of Iraq and be fully
committed on one side of the Sunni-Shi'a divide in the region means that
Maliki has had to move even closer to Iran.
Political unrest in Iraq in the form of popular protests, mainly over
the failure of his government to improve basic services to the
population, has also forced Maliki to reduce the priority his government
had previously put on military cooperation with the U.S.
One indicator of Maliki's intentions is his apparent hesitation about
proceeding with the purchase of 18 of the latest model U.S. F-16 fighter
planes. Complete with advanced air-to-ground and air-to-air munitions,
the deal was estimated to be worth 4.2 billion dollars.
When the deal was officially announced last September, the Defense
Security Cooperation Agency, the Pentagon's office for foreign arms
sales, had crowed that it would "ensure a U.S. military presence in Iraq
for years to come".
In late January, the U.S. command in Iraq was so convinced that Maliki
was about to sign the agreement that it mistakenly put out a press
release announcing that the signing had already taken place.
But after protests began in Baghdad and Karbala in February, Iraqi
government spokesman Ali Dabbagh said the F-16 contract had been
"postponed this year". He explained that the 900 million dollars
required as a down payment on the F- 16 deal would be spent on
increasing the total amount spent on food rations for needy people from
three billion to four billion dollars.
Even though the Iraqi government announced Mar. 1 that higher oil prices
would add eight billion dollars to Iraq's budget this year, the F-16
fighter deal has nevertheless been downgraded to 12 planes, with less
sophisticated weapons systems. The deal is now estimated to be worth
just over one-fourth of the original, with a down payment that has
shrunk to 250 million dollars.
But it is still far from certain that Maliki will sign the deal,
according to the Iraqi military source, because Maliki has decided on
the building of a multi-billion-dollar national electric power grid.
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.
Close security and political relations between Maliki's government and
Iran are based not only on a shared past of Shi'a activism but
continuing conflict between Shi'a states and a Saudi-led anti-Shi'a
coalition.
*Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising
in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest
book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in
Vietnam", was published in 2006.
(END/2011)
http://ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=55150
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Palash Biswas
Pl Read:
http://nandigramunited-banga.blogspot.com/
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