Obama sets plans for Iraq pull-out

Submitted by Anon on 13 March, 2009 - 8:40 Author: Rhodri Evans

On 27 February new US president Barack Obama announced his detailed plans for Iraq.

Small reductions in US troop levels have already started. After them the US military presence will remain large — 120,000-plus — until after the Iraqi elections scheduled for December 2009.

Then faster withdrawal is planned, and “combat” operations are due to end by 31 August 2010.

Obama envisages “35-50,000 US troops” remaining after that. The deal which the Iraqi government pushed the Bush administration into signing at the end of 2008 commits the USA to removing all its troops by the end of 2011, but Obama is signalling that he wants to finesse that.

If the Iraqi state continues to consolidate, Obama has little choice about the broad shape of the scenario. As if to confirm that, his Republican opponent in the presidential election, John McCain, a vehement “hawk” on Iraq, has endorsed Obama’s plan.

Three huge problems obtrude.

First: the consolidation of the Iraqi state over the last year or so, though real, is precarious. It is not a consolidation based on democratic reconciliation, but one based on war-weariness and the building-up of the Iraqi army. Arab-Kurdish conflicts over Kirkuk could unravel it. The world economic crisis and the slump in oil prices could undermine it.

Second: the “hardening” of the Iraqi army creates an option which US strategists have toyed with for some time — at a convenient moment, to unleash a “deniable” coup which will replace unsatisfactory elected Iraqi government by the rule of Iraqi generals well trained by the USA.

Third: the current Iraqi government was elected — but largely by a communal headcount. It is scarcely less threatening to the Iraqi labour movement than an outright military regime would be.

It keeps Saddam’s labour laws, and Decree 8750 from 2005, which authorises the government to seize union funds whenever it likes.

Just recently the government has demanded that the leadership of the Iraqi Teachers’ Union hand over the keys to its headquarters along with membership and other records.

The Government wants to force elections on the union, and has told the current union leaders that they must not stand, on pain of prison terms of up to five years.

Support from labour movements worldwide is still needed for the Iraqi labour movement and its rights, and for the cause of democratic and secular self-determination for Iraq.

The international labour conference in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, due to open on 13 March, could be an important focus for developing that support. Ruth Cashman, a delegate to the Erbil conference from No Sweat and Iraq Union Solidarity in Britain, will be reporting back from it at the 21 March Workers’ Liberty day school.

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