The streets outside The American Prospect offices were teeming with police today, who were securing the area for the appearance of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki at the nearby U.S. Institute of Peace. Perhaps the most important takeway from Maliki's appearance was in response to a question asked by Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent, who asked Maliki about what the relationship between Iraq and the United States would be like in 2011, and whether the Status of Forces Agreement would be renegotiated.
Speaking through an interpreter, Maliki said that "if Iraqi forces require further training, we will examine this at that time ... the nature of that relationship, the amount of forces will be examined then and discussed based on the needs," suggesting that the American commitment to Iraq could be more open-ended than it appears, and contrary to what the administration seems to have indicated.
In Iraq and internationally, there are some concerns that, with many of Maliki's enemies crushed by the surge, he is positioning himself to accumulate more power and that Iraq might return to authoritarianism. Maliki dismissed concerns that arrests in the Diyala region were based more on disabling political enemies than prosecuting those who violated the law, saying that "those who have committed wrong actions or who were involved in spilling blood they will have to be referred to the judicial system," and that such operations were "happening away from any politicization and any sectarian calculation."
As for Iraq's relationship with the United States, Maliki strangely omitted any specific recognition of American efforts in his prepared remarks, instead thanking the "international community" for their support of Iraq's nascent democracy. However, when a reporter asked whether "domestic politics" were forcing Maliki to distance himself from the United States, Maliki insisted that "there are no internal politics of Iraq preventing us from having a relationship with a great and strong country like the United States." Of course, the fact that he needed to be prodded into saying so suggests the opposite.
-- A. Serwer
