Serving two masters in Iraq

IT MAY SEEM strange that an Iraqi government that the Bush administration claims as an ally is withholding approval of an exhaustively negotiated status-of-forces agreement. The administration needs the agreement in place by the end of this year, when the United Nations' legal authorization for the coaltion's military presence in Iraq ends. And the Iraqi government acknowledges that it still needs the security protection provided by US troops.

So why did the Iraqi cabinet unanimously insist this week that the draft agreement is unacceptable without crucial amendments?

The most obvious motive is located at the intersection of patriotism and politics. With provincial elections coming up early next year and public opinion surveys indicating that more than 70 percent of Iraqis want an end to the US occupation of their country, Iraqi ministers are striving to be seen aligning themselves with public opinion.

The United States has properly insisted that US military personnel cannot be prosecuted in Iraqi courts except for serious crimes committed off-base and off-duty. And even in those cases, the draft text of the agreement mandates that a joint Iraqi-American council will have to agree on Iraqi jurisdiction.

For the US military, legal protections of this kind are indispensable; they pertain in other countries where American bases are located, and members of Congress would understandably raise a ruckus if such protections were absent from Iraq. But for most Iraqi factions - the instructive exception being the two major Kurdish parties - even an incomplete legal immunity for foreign troops is perceived as a humiliating reprise of domination by colonialist powers.

For the Shi'ite religious parties that comprise the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, however, there is also another, less admissible reason for demanding changes in the text. Each of the major Shi'ite parties maintains close ties to the Islamic Republic of Iran. And even though the draft agreement envisions a withdrawal of US forces from Iraqi cities by June 30, conditions permitting, and a withdrawal of all US combat troops by the end of 2011, Tehran wants the Americans off its doorstep immediately, and without qualifying clauses. Maliki is trying to serve two mutually hostile masters.

The Iraq policy of the next American president will have to be rooted in a realization that Bush has opened Iraq to Iranian influence. The soundest way to counter that influence is to cease being an occupying power as quickly as possible and to strengthen ties with Iraqi factions that truly want a pluralist, independent future.