Hey you. Yes, I’m talking to you, members of the Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Maliki. Listen up.
Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of State of These United States of America, wants you to know something. Something really important. You need us, and by us she means our troops, our guns, our war planes, our surveillance drones, our bombs and our missiles. Because, let’s face it, you aren’t up to the task of being a “real country” just yet:
PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico (Reuters) – Iraqi forces cannot yet defend Iraq by themselves, so Baghdad should accept a pact that would allow U.S. troops to remain, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday. […]
“Iraq has a strong interest in making sure that the coalition forces, U.S. forces, can remain in Iraq long enough to secure the gains that have been made, and long enough for Iraqi security forces to be able to take up their rightful places defending Iraq,” Rice said.
“But I don’t think that anybody believes that they are capable of doing that alone right now.” […]
Iraq’s cabinet decided on Tuesday to demand amendments to the pact that would allow U.S. forces to stay beyond this year, although Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said Iraq would not seek to renegotiate the “backbone” of the agreement.
How ironic that the Iraqi government, the one the Bush administration insists is the legitimate sovereign ruler of Iraq, suddenly isn’t so sovereign after all precisely at that moment when their Cabinet is balking at extending the presence of American troops on their soil. Suddenly, the government the Bushies have been praising as competent, of standing up while we stand down …
HILLA, Iraq (AFP) — Iraq took control of the central Shiite province of Babil from US forces on Thursday, in what local officials said was further sign of security gains across the war-torn nation. […]
“Just a year ago this province used to see well over 20 attacks per week and today attacks are down by 80 percent. This is truly remarkable,” Lieutenant General Lloyd Austin, the number two commander of US forces in Iraq, said at the handover ceremony in the provincial capital Hilla. […]
“I am confident that the central government and the provincial government, Sunni and Shiite will work together to ovecome any challenge we may face.”
… is now being lectured by Secretary Rice regarding how ineffectual they are. You don’t know what’s good for you is the unspoken subtext of her message to those Iraqi politicians and officials who don’t want us there, and don’t like the terms of the “Status of Forces Agreement” (i.e., the agreement that would give the US of A a legal basis for its continued military presence in Iraq past December 31, 2008, or SOFA for short) that the Bush administration is trying to ram down their throats.
In essence, she’s treating the sovereign Iraqi government, or at least those parts of it that don’t think that the agreement Prime Minister Maliki negotiated with the US is in Iraq’s best interests, as little wayward children who have to be scolded and brought to heel by their Uncle Sam, who knows what’s best for them better than they do. The same Uncle Sam who invaded their country based on a lie. The same Uncle Sam who lusts after their oil. The same Uncle Sam whose interests just might not perfectly align with their own.
So, what’s a US Secretary of State to do when the “legitimate” government of Iraq doesn’t do her bidding the instant she snaps her fingers? Why, sort of in the same manner a Mafia Don “makes you an offer you can’t refuse,” she allows one of her “anonymous” minions to issue a few idle threats regrettably announce that something terrible could happen if, God forbid, these meddlesome Iraqi officials don’t get with the program:
In Washington, a State Department official who asked not to be named said one consequence of a failure to agree would be that U.S. forces would have to stop providing personal protection to senior Iraqi officials.
Isn’t that special. Our State Department is so worried about the safety of Iraq’s senior government officials that it would hate to see any of them lose their security details over such a minor matter as a little disagreement among “friends.”
Does anyone wonder why the Iraqi government might not like us so much anymore? Why they might want us to take our 155,000 troops, and our aerial attacks which kill and maim their women and children, and just leave? I sure don’t.
But what do I know. My husband isn’t George W. Bush. So Iraqi Cabinet officials, you’d better do what Mommy Secretary Rice tells you to do and just sign the damn proposed SOFA agreement. Or else.