In The Blogs

Examining the SOFA

| Wed Nov. 19, 2008 10:14 AM PST

EXAMINING THE SOFA....McClatchy has posted an unofficial translation of the Status of Forces Agreement that the Iraqi cabinet recently approved. Here are the key paragraphs:

"U.S. Forces" refers to the entity that includes all the personnel of the American Armed Forces, the civilian personnel connected to them and all their possessions, installations and equipment present on Iraqi territory.

....All U.S. forces are to withdraw from all Iraqi territory, water and airspace no later than the 31st of December of 2011.

That's as clear and simple as it could be, and as near as I can tell there are no weasel words elsewhere that weaken this commitment. Leila Feidel apparently agrees:

If Iraq's parliament endorses the agreement, in six weeks American forces would have to change the way they operate in Iraq, and all U.S. combat troops, police trainers and military advisers would have to leave the country by Dec. 31, 2011. President-elect Barack Obama's campaign plan to leave a residual force of some 30,000 American troops in Iraq would be impossible under the pact.

Now, obviously Iraq and the U.S. can mutually agree to amend the SOFA later if they decide to. But the fact that the wording of the current document is so clear — not "aspirational," not "conditions based" — will make it hard to do that. This language will very shortly get baked into the DNA of every Iraqi in the country regardless of confessional or ethnic loyalty, and the document provides no mechanism for modification aside from changing the SOFA itself, which would require approval from the Iraqi parliament. And what are the odds of that?

The translated agreement is here. I encourage everyone to read through it and look for loopholes. If you find any, leave 'em in comments.

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Comments

Submitted by OhNoNotAgain (not verified) on Wed Nov. 19, 2008 11:54 AM PST.

This is a good sign. It means that Iraqis are willing to take control of their own destiny, and we should respect their wishes. If they need our help in the future, I'm sure they'll let us know. Until then, good luck and best wishes, we've got an asshole named Bin Laden to capture and bring to trial (wishful thinking, we'll probably just end up killing him or finding his body somewhere).

Submitted by Quicksand (not verified) on Wed Nov. 19, 2008 2:25 PM PST.

The last time I examined the SOFA I found a nickel and some bobby pins.

Submitted by Greg Worley (not verified) on Wed Nov. 19, 2008 3:31 PM PST.

I am not an Arabic speaker, but I have a question. I understand that there is a sort of subjunctive voice avaiable in Arabic that is often mistranslated as "is" but really means "may be" or "is if we can." Anyone know what the actual voice/tense of "are to withdraw" is in the original Arabic?

Submitted by Shogun (not verified) on Thu Nov. 20, 2008 1:11 PM PST.

Note that the title does not say Status of Forces Agreement(SOFA) or Security Agreement, but "An agreement regarding the withdrawal of the U.S. forces from Iraq and regulating the U.S. activities during its temporary presence." Since we haven't seen the official English-language version, we don't know whether it has the same title or is called a SOFA or Security Agreement. The document has many of the items that a 'normal' SOFA would have, but contains items that aren't usually in a SOFA.

Submitted by LesB (not verified) on Thu Nov. 20, 2008 8:21 PM PST.

This just underlines how pointless it was for Obama and McCain to be arguing over when US troups would withdraw. When Iraq's armed initiative in Basra and Bagdhad was successful, it became obvious that its security forces were on their way to being strong enough to defend the country on their own.

That meant that Maliki was in the driver's seat as to how long US forces would remain in the country, no matter who became the next president. It is impossible to imagine that McCain would keep troups in the country against the will of the democratically-elected leader of Iraq. And it is unlikely that Obama would withdraw troups early if Maliki, likely supported by the US commanders on the scene, thought they should stay in longer. So the debate between the two presidential candidates was just a lot of hot air over nothing.