Bush's Last Chance To Get It Right

Press Release

To leave our next president with a better situation in Iraq, the Bush administration, which since 2003 has been defined by a series of strategic missteps in Iraq, must seize the current opportunity to push for political reforms as a precondition for extending our mission in Iraq.

Negotiations between the U.S. and Iraqi governments are under way to replace the expiring U.N. mandate that outlines the terms and conditions of U.S. military forces operating in Iraq with a bilateral "status-of-forces" agreement. The security situation in Iraq has improved dramatically, and the time to reap political change is now.

A status-of-forces agreement is a government-to-government agreement that can address many issues including uniform protocols, taxes and fees levied on military personnel by a foreign government, the use of radio frequencies, and most important, which country may exercise criminal jurisdiction over which personnel and in what circumstances.

Recently, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said of the status-of-forces negotiations, "We have reached a dead end, because when we started the talks, we found that the U.S. demands hugely infringe on the sovereignty of Iraq, and this we can never accept."

There is a bit of gamesmanship being played by the Iraqis in these negotiations. They would like to have an agreement where we guarantee their security and give them tools to control or limit U.S. actions by allowing them to prosecute Americans in Iraqi courts when things go wrong. With corruption and sectarianism rampant in Iraq, the likelihood that such powers would be abused is a near certainty.

While we should improve ways for Iraqis to bring allegations of wrongdoing by Americans to the attention of U.S. authorities, we should not hand the Iraqi government a bilateral agreement that keeps our military service members in harm's way defending an Iraqi government that insists on hamstringing, manipulating, dissuading, or vetoing our operations.

The current administration, as part of its legacy, desperately wants to hand the next president a framework for continued U.S. assistance to Iraq. Unfortunately, the Iraqis sense this desperation and are using it to their advantage.

Instead of a defensive posture in negotiations where the U.S. is ceding conditions to the Iraqi government it should not, the Bush Administration needs to call the bluff of Prime Minister al-Maliki.

If the Iraqi government wants us to leave or refuses to undertake overdue political reforms, we should leave. If the Iraqi government wants America to stay and help, we must tell them that they must not only agree to the conditions that come with our help, but they also need to make substantial progress toward political reconciliation in the next six months.

For all the gains America and our partners in Iraq have made on the security front, political progress remains near static and highly unsatisfactory.

Caving to the wrong Iraqi demands in status-of-forces negotiations will compromise the future of our mission and misses the opportunity to seize the day and push the Iraqi government to make needed political reforms under greatly improved security conditions.

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