Wednesday, June 18, 2008 at 5:01 am
Iraq History Lesson
Karl Meyer reminds us that the deal that ended the British Mandate in Iraq in 1930 bears no small resemblance to the Status of Forces Agreement being negotiated with the Iraqis now. I'm not sure that Meyer has the outlines of the deal right: no way will there be 58 long-term U.S. bases. But the key issue is the same--how much sovereignty will Iraq demand and the U.S. allow.
This seems a simple proposition: the Iraqis should have all the sovereignty they want. It is probable that the Maliki government will want a U.S. military presence, for the time being. But the rules governing that presence should be similar to those accorded the U.S. military in countries like Japan and Germany--i.e. without the right to act unilaterally on Iraqi terrain. Any intimation that the U.S. is forcing conditions on the Iraqis will result, as Meyer notes, in long-term resentment and reaction--and continued violence against our troops.
In the end, as I've written here before, there is no good rationale for a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq; it will be a permanent irritant. And this seems one of the clear foreign policy differences in the presidential campaign: McCain wants a long-term presence. Obama doesn't.
About Swampland
Joe Klein is TIME's political columnist and author of six books, most recently Politics Lost. His weekly TIME column, "In the Arena," covers national and international affairs. In 2004 he won the National Headliner Award for best magazine column. Read more
Senior Writer Karen Tumulty has been TIME's National Political Correspondent since 2001, and has also covered the White House and Congress for the magazine. A native of San Antonio, she is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and Harvard Business School, where her career choice has significantly lowered the average salary of her graduating class. But she gets lots of free magazines. Read more
Jay Newton-Small Jay Newton-Small covers politics for TIME. She has covered the Bush 43 White House and also Congress from the DeLay era to the present. And, yes, despite the misleading name SHE is a she. Read more
Michael Scherer is a correspondent in TIME's Washington bureau covering the 2008 presidential campaign. He has worked national assignments for Mother Jones magazine and Salon.com. Read more
Amy Sullivan is a senior editor at TIME magazine, and author of the book The Party Faithful: How and Why Democrats are Closing the God Gap (Scribner, 2008). A Michigan native, she holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Harvard Divinity School. She writes about religion and politics for TIME, but no longer answers to the name "Bible Girl." Read more
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