As Iraqis begin the holy month of Ramadan facing high food prices and continued lack of basic services, they also face another upswing in violence. This past week saw over 100 killed and over 600 (Reuters estimates over 1,000) wounded in bombings across Baghdad. While the theories swirl as to who and why and especially how these attacks in relatively “safe” portions of the city occurred – we can be certain that these tragedies will be used in the continuing attempts to justify breaking or sidelining the terms of the SOFA. 

Right before the bombings, Gerneral Ray Odierno was making a play to breach the SOFA, recommending that US forces be moved into Northern cities to assist Peshmerga and Iraqi troops in the continuing violence in the region. Claiming the US forces would act as  some kind of peacekeeping force between the two, Odierno conveniently sidestepped the unease Iraqi government forces must feel at such a suggestion given our use throughout the American war and occupation of the Peshmerga as our frontline storm troopers in the fight against Iraqi nationalist resistance – and ignored Iraq’s own plans.

“Al Qaeda is exploiting these fissures you’re seeing between Arabs and the Kurds in Nineveh Province and the K.R.G.,” General Odierno said, referring to the Kurdistan regional government, in a briefing with a small group of reporters. “What we’re trying to do is close that fissure.”

In what has to be the quote of the week, Odierno said:

"We’re working very hard to come up with a security architecture in the disputed territories that would reduce tension.They just all feel more comfortable if we’re there." (emph. added)

More comfortable? Given that “a poll commissioned by the U.S. military earlier this year found that Iraqis expressed far less confidence in American troops than in the Iraqi government or any of its security forces” that sure seems like classic Odierno wishful thinking. In fact,  only “Twenty-seven percent of Iraqis polled said they had confidence in U.S. forces, according to a Pentagon report presented to Congress last month. By contrast, 72 percent expressed confidence in the national government.”

Such confidence – when coupled with Maliki’s announcement that the popular referendum on the SOFA which was supposed to happen last week will in fact happen in January – even though the US government is putting the pressure on to cancel it outright – points once again to the Iraqi demand to have the US out so they can handle their own affairs.

As Bruce Ackerman and Oona Hathaway write in the Financial Times,  preparing for an early withdrawal from Iraq is the only appropriate response of the Obama administration to the planned referendum:

But now that Mr Maliki has taken concrete steps to put it in place, Mr Obama should call a halt to these efforts to undermine the referendum. It was one thing for Mr Obama and his team to forget their protests against Mr Bush’s unilateral actions. It is quite another to encourage Mr Maliki to run roughshod over his own constitution.

At the earliest opportunity, Mr Obama or Mrs Clinton, as secretary of state, should make it clear that they respect Mr Maliki’s decision and that the US military should start work on a contingency plan for expedited withdrawal.

After all, it was the US invasion that caused the destruction of Iraq and the development of the sectarian divisions that lead to such horrors as this week’s bombings – and any claim that US forces are required to ease the inevitable outcome of our destruction just rubs salt in the wounds we created.

 h/t markfromireland for pointing to the Ahmad Al-Jawadi video.