[Even without a military presence in Iraq , the United States maintains at least some leverage over Iraqi officials. Iraq wants to purchase F-16 warplanes from the United States , for example, and the Obama administration has been trying to help the government forge better relations with its Sunni Arab neighbors, like the United Arab Emirates , which recently sent its defense chief to Baghdad to talk about how the Iraqis could participate in regional exercises.]
By Helene Cooper and Thom Shanker
Sabah Arar/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images
Iraq tightened security measures on Saturday at the entrance to a Christian church in Baghdad. |
And for
the United
States ,
that is where the American intervention in Iraq officially stops.
Sectarian violence and political turmoil in Iraq escalated within days of the
United States military’s withdrawal, but officials said in interviews that President Obama had no intention of sending troops
back into the country, even if it devolved into civil war.
The United States , without troops on the ground or any direct influence over
Iraq ’s affairs, has lost much of its leverage there. And so the
latest crisis, a descent into sectarian distrust and hostility that was
punctuated by a bombing in Baghdad on Thursday that killed more than 60 people, is being
treated in much the same way that the United States would treat any diplomatic emergency abroad.
Mr. Obama,
his aides said, is adamant that the United States will not send troops back to Iraq . At Fort Bragg, N.C., on Dec. 14, he told
returning troops that he had left Iraq in the hands of the Iraqi people, and in private
conversations at the White House, he has told aides that the United States gave Iraqis an opportunity; what they do with that
opportunity is up to them.
Though the
president has been heralding the end of the Iraq war as a victory, and a fulfillment of his campaign
promise to bring American troops home, the sudden crisis could quickly become a
political problem for Mr. Obama, foreign policy experts said.
“Right
now, Iraq, along with getting Osama bin Laden, succeeding in Libya, and
restoring the U.S. reputation in the world, is a clear plus for Obama,” said
David Rothkopf, a former official in the administration of Bill Clinton and a
national security expert. “He kept his promise and got out. But the story could
turn on him very rapidly.”
For instance,
Mr. Rothkopf and other national security experts said, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq is swiftly adopting policies that are setting off deep
divisions among Sunnis, Kurds and Shiites. If Iraq fragments, if Iran starts to assert more visible influence or if a civil war
breaks out, “the president could be blamed,” Mr. Rothkopf said. “He would be
remembered not for leaving Iraq but for how he left it.”
Already,
Mr. Obama is coming under political fire. Senator John McCain, Republican of
Arizona, said that Mr. Obama’s decision to pull American troops out had
“unraveled.” Appearing on CBS News on Thursday, Mr. McCain said that “we are
paying a very heavy price in Baghdad because of our failure to have a residual
force there,” adding that while he was disturbed by what had happened in the
past week, he was not surprised.
Administration
officials, for their part, countered that it was hard to see how American
troops could have prevented either the political crisis or the coordinated
attacks in Iraq .
“These
crises before happened when there were tens of thousands of American troops in
Iraq, and they all got resolved, but resolved by Iraqis through the political
process,” said Antony J. Blinken, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser. “The
test will be whether, with our diplomatic help, they continue to use politics
to overcome their differences, pursue power sharing and get to a better place.”
So far,
the administration is maintaining a hands-off stance in public, even as Mr.
Biden has privately exhorted Iraqi officials to mend their differences. Several
Obama administration officials have been on the phone all week imploring Mr.
Maliki and other Iraqi officials to quickly work through the charges and
countercharges swirling around Mr. Maliki’s accusation that the Sunni vice
president, Tariq al-Hashimi, enlisted personal bodyguards to run a death squad.
Aides said
that Mr. Biden talked to Mr. Maliki; Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni political
leader; and Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish leader. He urged the men to organize a
meeting of Iraq’s top political leaders, from Mr. Maliki on down, conveying the
message that “you all need to stop hurling accusations at each other through
the media and actually sit together and work through your competing concerns,”
a senior administration official said. That official, like several others,
agreed to discuss internal administration thinking only on the condition of
anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue.
American
officials say they believe that Mr. Talabani is the best person to convene such
a meeting, because he is respected by the most Iraqis.
Mr. Biden
is not the only high-ranking American official who is actively involved in
discussions with Iraqi officials. David H. Petraeus, the director of the C.I.A. who formerly served as the top
commander in Iraq , traveled to Baghdad recently for talks with his Iraqi counterparts.
Beyond
that, Obama administration officials have conveyed to Mr. Maliki that the
American economic, security and diplomatic relationship with Iraq will be “colored” by the extent to which Mr. Maliki can
hold together a coalition government that includes Sunnis and Kurds, one
administration official said.
Even
without a military presence in Iraq , the United States maintains at least some leverage over Iraqi officials. Iraq wants to purchase F-16 warplanes from the United States , for example, and the Obama administration has been trying
to help the government forge better relations with its Sunni Arab neighbors,
like the United
Arab Emirates ,
which recently sent its defense chief to Baghdad to talk about how the Iraqis could participate in regional
exercises.
Pentagon
officials and military officers had hoped a deal could be struck with the Iraqi
government to keep at least several thousand American combat troops and
trainers in Iraq after Dec. 31. But domestic politics in Iraq made that impossible, and the outcome also fit with Mr.
Obama’s narrative of a full withdrawal from a war he vowed to end.
Even plans
quietly drawn up for the continued deployment of counterterrorism commandos
were just as quietly pulled off the table, to make sure that Mr. Obama’s pledge
to reduce American combat forces to zero would be met, according to senior
administration officials.
The only
American military personnel remaining in Iraq today are the fewer than 200 members of an Office of
Security Cooperation that operates within the American Embassy to coordinate
military relations between Washington
and Baghdad , particularly arms sales.
The United
States has about 40,000 service members remaining throughout the Middle East
and the Persian Gulf region, including a ground combat unit that was one of the
last out of Iraq — and remains, at least temporarily, just across the border in
Kuwait. Significant numbers of long-range strike aircraft also are on call
aboard aircraft carriers and at bases in the region.
As the
responsibility for nurturing bilateral relations shifts to the State
Department, the responsibility for security assistance moves to the C.I.A.,
which operates in Iraq
under a separate authority, independent of the military.
Although
the United
States
military is unlikely to return to Iraq , it is possible that military counterterrorism personnel
could return, if approved by the president, under C.I.A. authority, just as an
elite team of Navy commandos carried out the raid that killed Osama bin Laden
under C.I.A. command.
The C.I.A.
historically has operated its own strike teams, and it also has the authority
to hire indigenous operatives to participate in its counterterrorism missions.
“As the U.S. military has drawn down to zero in terms of combat troops,
the U.S. intelligence community has not done the same,” a senior
administration official said. “Intelligence cooperation remains very important
to the U.S.-Iraqi relationship.”
The
official acknowledged a risk punctuated by the recent unrest. “There are
serious counterterrorism issues that confront Iraq ,” the official said. “And we don’t want to let go of the
very solid relationships we have built over the years to share information of
importance to both countries.”
Even if
the unrest rose to levels approaching civil war, American officials said, it
was unlikely that Mr. Obama would allow the American military to return.
“There is
a strong sense that we need to let events in Iraq play out,” said one senior administration official. “There
is not a great deal of appetite for re-engagement. We are not going to reinvade
Iraq .”