O deadline apontado pelo Presidente para que o Exército Americano retire por completo do Iraque é 31 de Agosto de 2010. Nos próximos 14 meses, é isso que acontecerá.
Editorial do New York Times:
«After six bloody, ruinously costly years, there is an end in sight to the American occupation of Iraq. Under an agreement with the Baghdad government, American combat troops are to leave Iraq’s cities by Tuesday. President Obama has pledged that by Aug. 31, 2010 — 14 months from now — all combat troops will be out of Iraq and by the end of 2011 all American troops will be gone.
For a badly overstretched American military it will certainly be time to go. Repeated deployments have taken a huge toll on soldiers and their families. The Iraq war — an unnecessary war — has diverted critically needed resources away from Afghanistan, the real front in the war on terrorism. Many Iraqis are eager to see the Americans gone. Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has declared June 30 to be a day of “feast and festivals.”
But there is an enormous amount to do — and not a lot of time — to help Iraqis prepare for the withdrawal and to reduce the chances the country will unravel as American troops leave.
We once hoped that a clear timetable for an American withdrawal would finally persuade Iraq’s leaders to make the political compromises that are the only way to hold their country together without an indefinite occupation. That has not happened. The Parliament has still not passed a law to divide Iraq’s oil resources equitably.
Indeed there are worrying signs that Iraqi politicians are doing the opposite — looking for ways to shore up their communal interests in case the civil war reignites. Many of Iraq’s neighbors are making the same calculations. Violence is down, but extremists are still trying to spark a new cycle of attacks and retaliation. In June, more than 300 Iraqis and 10 Americans were killed.
Mr. Obama was right to commit to a carefully paced and responsible withdrawal, and he was right to say that the United States cannot solve all of Iraq’s problems before it leaves. But we are concerned that Iraq may not be getting all the attention it needs in Washington.
The top American military commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, is a strong leader, and Christopher Hill, the new American ambassador in Baghdad, is a talented diplomat. Still, Mr. Obama has a high-level adviser for Afghanistan and Pakistan, for Middle East peace negotiations, and for Iran, but there is no marquee name for Iraq to ensure that the president and the bureaucracy are fully engaged.
We understand that for political reasons, in both countries, the United States cannot be seen to micro-manage events. But there are still many problems that need sustained and high-level American attention.
Iraqi Readiness Until a few weeks ago, American commanders were hoping that Iraq’s government would invite them to keep combat troops in certain Baghdad neighborhoods and in the northern city of Mosul, where sectarian tensions are high and Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia is still active. It didn’t, and Washington decided not to insist, given Iraqis’ sensitivities.
Most analysts give the American military training program good marks. They differ on whether Iraq’s army — still plagued by corruption, discipline problems, equipment shortages and security breaches — is ready to keep the peace in the cities. The police force and the interior ministry need even more work.
A January report to Congress by the Pentagon said that as of last fall, 17 of the Iraq Army’s 174 combat battalions were capable of conducting counterinsurgency operations without American support. All of Iraq’s army is dependent on the American military for intelligence, logistics and air support.
For now American troops — there are 130,000 in Iraq — are not going far. Baghdad’s sprawling Camp Victory has been designated as outside of the city limits, although it is just a 10-minute helicopter ride from the Green Zone.
Before American troops can really go, Iraq’s Army will need to develop enough of those missing capacities to be able to fight on its own. The United States is also going to have to help Iraq build an air force and a navy so it can defend its own borders — an effort that will stretch far beyond the 2011 withdrawal deadline
Iraq is in a dangerous neighborhood, but it also has its own history of menacing its neighbors. Washington is going to have to decide how much firepower it is willing to sell Iraq, knowing that Baghdad can buy elsewhere.
We are particularly concerned about the Iraqi government’s cavalier — or worse — treatment of the Awakening Councils. Those are the former Sunni insurgents who decided to switch sides, at Washington’s urging. Members have complained about delays in being paid. The government has barely made a down payment on its commitment to find jobs for the group’s 94,000 members in the security services, ministries or private sector.
Baghdad blames dropping oil prices and a budget squeeze for the employment problems. But keeping these fighters, and their relatives and neighbors, on the government’s side should be a top priority. Mr. Maliki has further alienated many Sunnis by ordering the arrest of several council leaders and a few high-profile Sunni politicians. Iraqi officials say the arrests are justified. United States officials need to impress on the prime minister the dangers he is courting.
Kurdish Ambition Speaking privately, many American officials say they are even more worried about rising tensions between Arabs and Kurds in northern Iraq.
The disputes are over boundaries, oil and the power of Iraq’s central government. The autonomous Kurdish regional government insists that it has a historical claim to towns and villages in three provinces just over the present regional border that were forcibly purged of Kurds and repopulated with Arabs by Saddam Hussein. Since 2003 — often with Washington’s blessing — the Kurdish government has deployed its militia, the pesh merga, to some of these areas and spent millions of dollars on services in an attempt to assert its control.
Fearing displacement or Kurdish domination, Sunni Arabs have turned to hard-line politicians or extremists, including Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, to defend their interests. American troops have had to defuse confrontations between government forces and the pesh merga. Tensions are particularly high in Nineveh Province and its capital, Mosul. The Sunnis won the majority on the provincial council in January’s election and immediately stripped the Kurdish bloc, which came in second, of all positions and patronage.
The most dangerous dispute, however, is over control of the oil-rich, multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk and the surrounding province. In April, the United Nations issued a report with several options for Kirkuk, including making it an autonomous region jointly run by Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens. Washington must press Baghdad and the Kurds to appoint responsible negotiators and urge them not to stake out extreme positions. If an agreement for Kirkuk cannot be reached, all three governments may have to consider outside administration, possibly United Nations-led, for some period.
Refugees One of the war’s great tragedies has been the forced flight of an estimated four million Iraqis — more than one out of 10 — from their homes. A small number, perhaps 100,000, have begun trickling back; a still smaller number have been permanently resettled abroad.
Millions live under extremely difficult conditions. Many are from the former Sunni elite. Others are Shiites whose mixed-population neighborhoods became Sunni during the upheavals of 2006-7. They all need the chance to return safely. Iraq needs their talents. Large numbers of refugees also put dangerous economic and political strains on Iraq’s neighbors.
Working out the politics and logistics of whether refugees return to their old homes (now occupied by others) or get new ones will require international aid and advice and enlightened leadership. While waiting for that to happen, millions of people need housing, food and education assistance. Syria and Jordan, which host the largest numbers of refugees, need continued international and American help. The United States needs to take in many more Iraqis, especially those who risked their lives to work with the Americans.
Governing More than anything, Iraq needs competent, inclusive government. To win public loyalties, the government must do a much better job of providing basic services to all Iraqis. With improved security, there has been an encouraging leap in electricity production, although there are still too many interruptions and shortfalls. Clean water is in desperately short supply.
Iraq’s politicians also need to show a far greater willingness to address and resolve long-deferred political problems. In February, on the same day he outlined his withdrawal plans, Mr. Obama said “ a lot of the ultimate outcome” in Iraq would depend on how difficult issues, including the oil law, are resolved. American officials now say that is unlikely to happen any time soon and they will be satisfied if legislators manage to pass a new election law in time for January’s national elections.
There are growing concerns that Prime Minister Maliki may be accumulating too much power, undercutting rivals and building a cadre of military and intelligence officers loyal only to him. Washington must make clear that it will not support any power grab and find ways to encourage other political leaders, while dissuading them from making their own power grabs.
Neighbors A stable Iraq is in the clear interest of all of its neighbors. Unfortunately few have seen it that way. Iran and Syria have meddled constantly — driving up the violence and backing off only when it looked as if the war could spin out of control and over Iraq’s borders or the Americans might retaliate. Tehran would still like to control Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government.
Meanwhile, many of America’s closest regional allies have withheld their support. Egypt’s Sunni-led government has only recently named an ambassador to Baghdad. Saudi Arabia’s Sunni royal family still has not.
Washington must do a lot more to persuade these allies that their interests would be far better served by building strong diplomatic and economic ties with Iraq. That is the best way to counterbalance Tehran. And with closer ties come more influence and more opportunity to help defend the interests of Iraq’s Sunni minority.
Relations with Tehran are particularly difficult right now, but at some point the Obama administration will have to renew its offer for dialogue. Iraq’s stability will have to be part of those discussions. We assume those discussions are already under way with Damascus.
The United States cannot fix Iraq. That is up to the Iraqis. But in the time left, this country has a responsibility and a strong strategic interest to do its best to help Iraq emerge from this disaster as a functioning, sovereign and reasonably democratic state.»
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