makingtracks.jpgBy now, there’s a good chance you’ve heard about this story in the Washington Post today:

High-level negotiations over the future role of the U.S. military in Iraq have turned into an increasingly acrimonious public debate, with Iraqi politicians denouncing what they say are U.S. demands to maintain nearly 60 bases in their country indefinitely.

Top Iraqi officials are calling for a radical reduction of the U.S. military’s role here after the U.N. mandate authorizing its presence expires at the end of this year. Encouraged by recent Iraqi military successes, government officials have said that the United States should agree to confine American troops to military bases unless the Iraqis ask for their assistance, with some saying Iraq might be better off without them.

The Americans are making demands that would lead to the colonization of Iraq,” said Sami al-Askari, a senior Shiite politician on parliament’s foreign relations committee who is close to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. “If we can’t reach a fair agreement, many people think we should say, ‘Goodbye, U.S. troops. We don’t need you here anymore.’ “

. . . The American negotiators also called for continued control over Iraqi airspace and the right to refuel planes in the air, according to Askari, positions he said added to concerns that the United States was preparing to use Iraq as a base to attack Iran.

“We rejected the whole thing from the beginning,” said Jalal al-Din al-Saghir, a senior lawmaker from the Supreme Council. “In my point of view, it would just be a new occupation with an Iraqi signature.”

. . . Assuming that violence in Iraq will continue to decrease, politicians such as Saghir have begun discussing another option: asking the U.S. military to leave Iraq.

“Maybe the Iraqi government will say: ‘Hey, the security situation is better. We don’t need any more troops in Iraq,’ ” he said.

This is the latest step in the orchestrated groundswell of Iraqi complaints to U.S. media outlets about the proposed security deal that began with associates of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani leaking rumors of his increasing unease with the occupation a few weeks ago.

At the very least, it’s posturing to improve the Iraqi government’s negotiating position regarding the potential agreement. Some say it’s barely even that — they think Maliki & Co. are (still) the Bushites’ loyal puppets, and are just making noises to placate popular opinion at home before eventually giving Dubya and Dick Cheney most of what they want.

As some readers may know, I’m not so sure about that. I’ve written before about the ultimate eviction of U.S. troops being part of the long-term plan of the Shiite hierarchy, and the rhetoric the Shiite pols are ratcheting up at the moment seems difficult to back away from — rather than setting the stage for a reversal, they appear to be almost painting themselves into a corner.

It wouldn’t be the first time, of course. The image at the top of this post is a billboard the Shiite coalition had put up as they celebrated their Sistani-fueled electoral victory in early 2005. Replacing a previous pitch for Iraqis to vote (on the right), the new billboard showed what looked like tank tracks on an empty stretch of land, with the legend, “They are leaving, and we are staying.”

So far, we haven’t left. The question, though, is whether that’s because the former exiles who make up the current government are inextricably bound to us (out of love or necessity), or whether they’ve simply viewed us as contractors who needed to put in some overtime to subdue their enemies — a task they may now see as being nearly complete. We may find out in the next few months.

Update: Via McClatchy Newspapers, Barack Obama has some thoughts on the subject of SOFA:

A spokesman for Obama (D-Ill) said any long-term U.S. security commitment to Iraq must be subject to Congressional approval; alternatively the administration should seek an extension of the current UN mandate. Obama wants a new administration to make it "absolutely clear that the United States will not maintain permanent bases in Iraq," said spokesman Bill Burton.

Part of my thinking on this issue has been that the Iraqis would rather negotiate with Obama than with the Bushites, and it’s no surprise that it’s Obama’s preference as well.