Maliki: Permanent U.S. Presence Means… an End to OccupationWhatever rationale the Bush administration cooks up for our soon-to-be-permanent presence in Iraq, chances are it won’t compare to Nouri al-Maliki’s. Maliki went on Iraqi TV today to say that the joint agreement reached today with President Bush actually means that the U.S. presence in Iraq is… wait for it… coming to an end!
“The United States has promised that the multinational forces will stay under a United Nations mandate only until the end of 2008,” Mr Maliki said in a televised address.“The final extension for the multinational forces under the UN mandate will finish in 2008.”
Mr Maliki said Iraq was not a threat to any of its neighbours as it was now a “democratic state”.
“It is no longer a danger to the interests of the region. We are saying frankly that there is no justification for Iraq to stay under Chapter VII. All the justification created by the former regime is now over,” he said.
Mr Maliki also said that Iraq had reached the stage where it did not need multinational forces and that the country should be allowed to become a “normal state”.
Now, given the crippling legacy of U.N. sanctions during the 1990s, the expiration of a U.N. security mandate has an emotional resonance for Iraqis that Maliki is rather cynically exploiting. Left apparently unstated is that after the U.N. mandate expires, Maliki will personally broker a new “justification” for the U.S.’s Mesopotamian excursion. What kind of government blatantly misrepresents to its public the implications of its actions? Why, the kind of government to which we bequeath long-term security guarantees, of course!