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Democracy, it turns out, has its saving graces: Nuri Al Maliki need
not shoulder alone the burden of sustaining a security accord with the
Americans. He has already made it known that the decision to keep
American forces in Iraq would depend on the approval of the major
political blocs in the country, and that the Sadrists would have no
choice but to accept the majority's decision. The Sadrists would be
left with the dubious honor of "resistance" to the Americans-but
they would hold onto the privileges granted them by their access to
state treasury and resources. Muqtada Al Sadr and the political
functionaries around him know that life bereft of government
patronage and the oil income of a centralized state is a journey into
the wilderness.
There remains, of course, the pledge given by presidential candidate
Barack Obama that a President Obama would liquidate the American
military role in Iraq by the end of 2011. That pledge was one of the
defining themes of his bid for the presidency, and it endeared him to
the "progressives" within his own party, who had been so agitated
and mobilized against the Iraq war. But Barack Obama is now the
standard-bearer of America's power. He has broken with the
"progressives" over Afghanistan, the use of drones in Pakistan,
Guantánamo, military tribunals, and a whole host of national security
policies that have (nearly) blurred the line between his policies and
those of his predecessor. The left has grumbled, but, in the main, it
has bowed to political necessity. At any rate, the fury on the left that
once surrounded the Iraq war has been spent; a residual American
presence in Iraq would fly under the radar of the purists within the
ranks of the Democratic Party. They will be under no obligation to
give it their blessing. That burden would instead be left to the
centrists and to the Republicans.
It is perhaps safe to assume that Robert Gates is carrying water for
the Obama administration-an outgoing official putting out some
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