The Future Of Iraqi-American Relations
By Pejman Yousefzadeh Posted in Foreign Affairs | Iraq | The United States — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
A really outstanding editorial from the Washington Post:
THOUGH IT was hardly noticed in Washington, Iraq's Shiite-led government sent a powerful message to Iran and to the Middle East last week. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose coalition is often portrayed as an Iranian client, traveled to Tehran for a meeting with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The ayatollah bluntly declared that Iraq's "most important problem" was the continuing presence of U.S. troops. He pressured Mr. Maliki to stop negotiating a package of agreements with the Bush administration that would delineate a "strategic framework" between Iraq and the United States and provide for the deployment of U.S. forces beyond the expiration of a U.N. mandate at the end of this year.
Mr. Maliki refused. He assured his Iranian hosts that Iraq would not be a launching pad for an American attack on Iran. But he pointedly told a press briefing that negotiations on the strategic partnership would continue. He repeated that commitment on Friday, even after warning that the talks had "reached a dead end." In effect, the Iraqi prime minister was saying that his country does not want to become an Iranian satellite but an independent Arab state that would look to the United States to ensure its security.
This would seem to be an obvious U.S. gain in what, according to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as well as President Bush, is the urgent task of countering Iran's attempt to dominate the Middle East. It means that Iraq, a country with the world's second largest oil reserves and a strategic linchpin of the Middle East, just might emerge from the last five years of war and turmoil as an American ally, even if its relations with Iran remain warm.
Read the rest for information on how this remarkably positive state of affairs is actually upsetting Congressional Democrats, who evidently wouldn't know good news if their lives depended on it. Read as well to get some facts on the specifics of the impending Iraqi-American agreement that counter the current spin that has Iraq serving as the latest addition to the American "empire." Andrew Sullivan has been on a particular tear recently, denouncing the incipient imperial ambitions of the United States. One hopes that someone passes along a copy of the editorial his way so that he could perhaps be educated on how things are really developing between the United States and Iraq.
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The Future Of Iraqi-American Relations 2 Comments (0 topical, 2 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Refer to Iraq as "a strategic linchpin of the Middle East", after years of saying "why Iraq" and "wrong war, wrong place", is satisfying.
Sometimes you just have to allow time (like, six years!) for the mentally-challenged to come up to speed.
What with the way they talk out of both sides of their mouths lately, I'm starting to equate our so-called "democratic" Senators and Congressmen with those Senators of the late Roman empire. Despite all the rhetoric coming from them that the republican government of that city had to be saved, they were so blinded by personal ambition and the greed stoked from the loot pillaged from their conquests that they ended up contributing to the empire-building going on. Somehow, in the back of my mind, I think this is what the Left is really motivated by, as in "All that oil money should be mine -- uh, the peoples'!"
After all, why are they not walking the talk that they keep talking, about pulling out and leaving the Middle East alone?
"Straight Talk Express"? My bum feet! -- Me, on Senator McCain and other "moderates"