WASHINGTON (IPS) — Amid high-level U.S. congressional
delegations to evaluate developments in Iraq, a growing number of voices here,
from both the Barack Obama administration and members of Congress, are
concerned about a complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from the country by
December 2011 – a deadline set forth in the supposedly inviolable Status of
Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the U.S. and Iraqi governments back in 2008.

The US military has a 2011 deadline for leaving Iraq.

The U.S. raid that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden
has reinvigorated debate about the necessity of a large U.S. military presence
in the region, particularly in Afghanistan, but after Speaker of the U.S. House
of Representatives John Boehner’s visit to Iraq earlier this month, the
argument for keeping troops in Iraq past the deadline has gained momentum.

“I think a small residual force should remain and the
sooner the administration engages the Iraqi government, I think the better off
we are going to be,” Boehner said during his trip.

Regardless of the number of U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq
after December, the Department of Defense’s current plans for departure will
leave behind legions of U.S. diplomatic personnel — the U.S. Department of
State intends to double its staff in Iraq to nearly 16,000 and rely entirely on
private contractors for security.

Along with senior members of Congress, top military
commanders have indicated that the U.S. would be more than willing to keep a
sufficiently large number of troops in Iraq past the deadline to maintain
security and continue their advisory role, contingent only on a formal request
by the Iraqi government. Some initial estimates by the U.S. military would keep
up to 10,000 residual troops stationed in Iraq.

“Should the Iraqi government decide to discuss the
potential for some U.S. troops to stay, I am certain my government will welcome
that dialogue,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike
Mullen said during a visit to Camp Victory in Baghdad last month.

Since combat operations ended in September 2010, the
remaining 46,000 U.S. troops have been limited to an advisory role in training
and assisting Iraq’s military and security forces. But some analysts who favor
a continued presence of U.S. troops have focused on the U.S. military’s ability
to protect strategic interests, rather than strengthening Iraq’s
self-governance and building a more favorable relationship with all levels of
Iraqi society.

“Having active bases in Iraq would allow us to project
power and influence, counter the threat from both Iran and Al-Qaeda, and
possibly even nudge the entire Middle East in a more pro-Western
direction,” Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations,
wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last month.

While the Obama administration has framed the issue in
decidedly different terms — placing Iraq’s self-determination as the major
consideration in any plan to extend the SOFA — senior officials have been quick
to point out the mutual interests a residual force may ensure and have stated
that any decision to keep troops stationed in Iraq must, because of logistical
purposes, be made within a reasonable time frame.

“They will not be able to do the kind of job in
intelligence fusion. They won’t be able to protect their own airspace. They
will have problems with logistics and maintenance,” Gates said in
testimony to the House Armed Services Committee earlier this year.

But some analysts have criticized the focus on troop
numbers, arguing that government officials, particularly members of Congress,
should be more concerned with bolstering the diplomatic mission in Iraq, and
how major cuts to the Department of State’s budget requests – 8.4 billion
dollars for fiscal year 2011 – will affect that mission.

“The civilian side of the U.S. foreign policy machine
has never been more important across the entire Middle East: understanding and
engaging newly empowered publics, building connections with emergent civil
society movements, partnering on economic development projects, supporting
police training and rule of law development,” Dr. Marc Lynch, a regional
expert, wrote on his foreignpolicy.com blog.

“That requires thinking past the military mission and
devoting adequate resources to the civilian sector — something which Secretary
Gates and the U.S. military clearly understand, but which Congress still
seemingly does not,” Lynch added.

Iraqi politics

While some continue to emphasize the need for either more
troops or a renewed effort at U.S. public diplomacy in Iraq as the deadline
draws nearer, Iraq will continue to face significant challenges in its domestic
political arena.

Iraq has not been immune to the sentiments of pro-democracy
uprisings gripping the Middle East – most of the protests, some ending in
violent clashes with government security forces, have taken place in Iraq’s
semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north, including the cities of Mosul,
Kirkuk and Sulaimaniya.

“The Iraqi political authorities need to end their
knee-jerk responses and stop banning protests, detaining demonstrators, and
beating journalists,” Joe Stork, the deputy director on the Middle East
for Human Rights Watch, said in a recent statement.

Last month, tensions flared at one intersection of Kirkuk’s
Arab and Kurdish neighborships and, while not violent, resulted in the
deployment of U.S. soldiers to ease the confrontation.

Acrimonious for decades, relations between Iraq’s
Arab-governed majority and its Kurdish minority have deteriorated in recent
years as territorial and sovereignty disputes, including over the oil-rich city
of Kirkuk, continue to fester.

The overall levels of violence in Iraq have dropped
dramatically since 2007, but the targeted killing of government officials,
sectarian strife – both in parliament and in the streets – and corruption
continue to hinder what is likely Iraq’s most important undertaking: rebuilding
after years of a bloody invasion, occupation and civil war.

Any extension of the SOFA is all but a political
impossibility in Iraq since, even though Iraqi government officials, including
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, have indicated their desire to keep some troops
past the deadline, the response from their constituencies, and from leaders
such as Moqtada al-Sadr, strongly opposed to any prolonged presence, would be
disastrous for Iraq’s fragile parliamentary coalition.

The crucial questions with regards to the U.S. presence in
Iraq may yet come to be guided from a diplomatic, civil society rather than a
militaristic frame of reference as President Obama fulfills his campaign
promise to leave Iraq.