I think it would be quite possible to go broke underestimating the intelligence of Nouri al-Maliki. Let's just say if we were trading camels, Nouri would probably walk away with all of my animals and I would hitch a ride home in my boxer shorts. The buttoned-up fashion plates in the White House, like Bush with his new-suit-a-day program, always wearing the chic new colors in men's neckties, probably think of Nouri as an Arab rube, what with his shlumpy attire and Nixonian five o'clock shadow. Should be a pushover. We're the mighty United States, with our giant red-white-and-blue foam finger thrust high into the Baghdad sky. We stormed into Iraq, kicked ass and took names. We're Number One!
So why's Maliki cleaning Condi Rice's clock in these 11th hour negotiation games? Hmm? I keep coming back to the idea this scruffy dude was schooled in a different milieu, to speak in French, the language of international diplomacy. Nouri's a master at the asymmetrical power game. When he was causing trouble for Saddam in his old dissident days, first in Iraq and then when the heat got too hot, in Iran and Syria, he had mainly his wits and his gift for organization. And up against this guy who literally learned cloak-and-dagger as on the job training, who played life and death games for a living, we've got a bunch of effete spoiled brats like the ex-preppie cheerleader turned faux cowboy, George W. Bush, and his anvil-haired Girl Friday, the wiz from the University of Denver who plays the piano and ice skates.
Why did we think we had a chance? George Bush has been sooo played by this dude. If we were still capable of embarrassment, and I don't see how we could be, this would be humiliating. Look at the Brink's job Maliki has pulled off. All of the money we spent to liberate Iraq, to cashier the hateful Saddam, was strictly on our tab. Iraq has been socking money away, $79 billion at last count. We've got 130,000 soldiers and just as many contractors there, we've spent a fortune on "permanent installations," forts and such, we're still spending $10 billion a month there even though we're going broke at home, and what does Maliki say? "It's been real, Yanks. Can't tell you how much we appreciate it. Now get the hell out of here."
The United Nations mandate deadline is coming up on December 31, only about three months away. After that, we have no legal authority to remain in Iraq. The cocky numbskull Bush, with his usual completely unwarranted confidence, thought we could have it all. First dibs on the oil fields, permanent bases, a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) which would allow our soldiers and contractors to carry on in the scofflaw way that has made the American military so popular in places like Okinawa. So Nouri, for just a little while, just long enough to lull us into complacency and to stop watching the clock, made a few tentative agreements with American oil companies for development (but not those profit sharing agreements we lusted after) and one or two other concessions. Which he's now pulled the plug on. As to the SOFA, Nouri and his team negotiated. And negotiated. And negotiated. Until finally even Clueless-in-Chief began to smell the camel droppings. Something just wasn't right. Nouri kind of tipped his hand a little while back when he altered his starting lineup on the negotiating team, purging the pro-American Iraqis and installing hardliners.
Condi, doing what she does best, pronouncing painfully obvious and utterly empty conclusions with her trademark self-importance, told us "we would have an agreement when we agree," which, frankly, did not surprise me to learn. Nouri picked the immunity provision as his line in the sand, but it could have been any of a number of terms of disagreement. I think he settled on immunity because he knew how much it would bug Bush -- the idea that an American soldier caught in some impropriety in Iraq could wind up in one of those scary court rooms of the kind that Saddam was "tried" in.
“Even if we ask for an extension, then we will ask for it according to our terms and we will attach conditions and the U.S. side will refuse,” he said in an interview on Wednesday with the directors of Iraqi satellite television channels. “U.S. forces would be without legal cover and will have no choice but to pull out from Iraq or stay and be in contravention of international law.” New York Times, September 18, 2008.
What Nouri is talking about there is that beyond December 31, 2008, sans accord, the United States military can no longer occupy Iraq with any international legitimacy. He's kind of rubbing our noses in it, isn't he? Is that really very subtle? Nouri and his "negotiating team" are dreaming up conditions to an extension of the 12/31 drop-dead date which they know we can't accept. I can't wait to hear about those. "Provided, that the extension of the UN Mandate beyond December 31, 2008, is expressly predicated and conditioned upon the agreement of Heidi Klum to a two-week vacation in Cannes with the Prime Minister, all expenses to be paid personally by the President of the United States with transportation aboard Air Force One." They're going to have fun with their sham caveats, all right.
Has the United States reached a point where we're like that obnoxious clown poised above a barrel of cold water who hurls insults at passersby, daring them to hit the target and dowse him? Does the world look at this madhouse, with the government now buying up all the investment banks and insurance companies, and running the Treasury's printing press till the currency catches fire, and think: WTF? Do they see that one of the major candidates for President is a guy who just announced that he thinks that Spain must be an enemy because its President has an Hispanic name, just like Hugo Chavez, and makes errors of comparable magnitude every five minutes because he's lost his marbles?
Maybe Maliki just wants America as far from Baghdad as humanly possible. The Arabs will take it from here. No hard feelings. Here, take some of this hummus with you - on the house.
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