Sami Moubayed, Forward Magazine editor-in-chief and Syrian political analyst, describes a last minute parliamentary scramble over the Status of Forces Agreement between Iraq and the U.S. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, originally unenthusiastic about the agreement, now says he will resign if it is not ratified, and he wants it to pass by a convincing parliamentary majority. A narrow victory, he fears, will deepen political divisions among Shi'ites, Kurds and Sunnis.
Iraq was given the right to say "no" to the Americans if they wanted to launch a war from its territory on neighboring countries. It was previously feared, by the Iranians and their Iraqi proxies, that the agreement would be used to legitimize the use of Iraqi territory to launch a war on Iran. Now that Iran is assured, Iraqi Shi'ites of the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) can approve such an agreement. Not only is the UIA now lobbying for the SOFA - to please the Americans who helped bring it to power during the last parliamentary elections - Maliki also is threatening to resign if the agreement does not pass on Wednesday.
It will be fascinating to see how all this goes down with the Iraqi people, and for that matter, with the rest of the Arab world. Mr. Moubayed sees the deepening divisions arising in the debate, but I suspect unity will win out in the end, and it will win out in a big way. The debate has not been conducted in secret.
Watching the weekend debate, which was broadcast live on Iraqi TV, one gets a feeling of how polarized Iraqis have become. The 44 members of the Iraqi Accordance Front, the 30 members of the Sadrist bloc, 11 members of a small Sunni bloc the Iraqi Dialogue Front, and the 15 members of the Fadila Party, are all likely to vote negatively, if a deal is not struck in advance with the prime minister.
Kurds, Shi'ites, and Sunnis are all into hard bargaining for the political power that can be secured in exchange for supporting the agreement. The Iraqi people, and perhaps the rest of the Arab world, are watching as Arab democracy plays out on TV. It's hard to imagine this having anything but a lasting impact. It's huge.
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