A controversial long-term US-Iraq security agreement was the focus, writes Rasha Saad Negotiations between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government over the security treaty due to expire next month have been held amid much debate. Opposition to the deal has come from a number of sides in Iraq. The two Iraqi officials familiar with the negotiations have said the Iraqi National Security Council had rejected an initial American draft that they said provided for virtual US control of Iraqi airspace and gave American troops greater freedom of movement and of detaining more suspects than the Iraqis can accept. Iran also vehemently opposed the pact. In the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper Ghassan Charbel quoted an Iraqi minister on the reason behind the pact as saying that his government preferred that all security-related responsibilities be transferred to it so that Iraq would be free of any foreign presence, "but with incomplete national reconciliation and the army's lack of an air force, the presence of American forces becomes an Iraqi need." The minister explained that if the US president ordered the immediate withdrawal of his troops stationed in Iraq the news will stun the region and many countries will rush to take immediate measures. "In such a scenario, the Iraqi army will be unable to exercise its authority over the country's territory. National reconciliation would be incomplete. Subjugating the Sunni areas will trigger a civil war. Al-Qaeda will not waste such a golden opportunity. It will once again penetrate into Sunni areas, and the country will fall prey to a regionally polarising civil war," the minister told Charbel. The minister also sees that the void attracts those with open appetites. In such a turbulent Iraq, he argues, Turkey may claim that its national security is threatened. It may seize the opportunity and dispatch its troops to bring down the Kurdish state. However, the minister insists, Iran will certainly be the main beneficiary of such a void. It has enough power, revenues and cards to be tempted to prove its presence in the Iraqi arena. At the same time, Syria and Jordan must get ready to receive more refugees along with all the implications of such a development. In such a situation, the minister concludes, questions must be raised about oil prices and the ability to confine Iraq's flames within the field of battle. Based on this interview, Charbel thus argues that Iraq's fate is not its business alone but affects the entire region with its security, stability and resources. "Neither the American withdrawal nor the Iranian-American deal is near. This is why Arabs should take the initiative to formulate a more realistic and effective approach. They should encourage the Iraqis to complete their national reconciliation and confirm the Arab embracement of Iraq," Charbel wrote. However, Raghida Dergham worries that the security treaty with Iraq, as significant as it is, is the last concern of both the US media and presidential candidates at a time when it has recently been a lead issue in the Arab and Iranian media. "This treaty embraces bilateral relations for years to come. Most notably, it consecrates the US military presence in Iraq, whether in the form of permanent bases or other temporary ones that follow the Turkish model. Since the prerogatives of the American side, as enshrined in the draft treaty, have upset Iran, Iranian and Iraqi leaders have voiced their objections to the treaty in such a way that was supposed to attract the attention of the American media, especially since some of these leaders engaged in an open provocation against US troops deployed in Iraq," Dergham wrote in Al-Hayat. Dergham argues that if the US Democratic candidate Barack Obama hopes to win votes on the basis of his call for an almost immediate withdrawal from Iraq, the American media can at least raise questions over the impact of such a bilateral treaty and whether it would support or contradict Obama's call for pulling American troops out of Iraq. "Perhaps it is time for a joint visit by John McCain and Barack Obama to Iraq, at least to become familiar with whatever preoccupies the entire region, while the American media dozes in deep slumber," Dergham wrote. In the London-based daily Asharq Al-Awsat, Bouthaina Shaaban wrote that the Iraq which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talked about during the security conference and which President Bush was speaking about to Air Force cadets in Colorado only exists in the minds of the speakers, and is far removed from the reality of millions of Iraqi widows, orphaned children and the physically maimed in addition to a million Iraqis who lost their lives and five million displaced. Focussing on US propaganda, Shaaban referred to Scott McClellan, spokesman in the White House from 2003 to 2006 and whose book What Happened: Inside The Bush White House and Washington Culture of Deception claimed how Bush mislead the US and the world about the war on Iraq and how it was not necessary. "The decision to invade Iraq", he says, "was a serious strategic blunder." Shaaban also referred to Richard Clark, the previous head of counterterrorism in the White House, who said that leaving the American forces in Iraq is helpful to Al-Qaeda. Shaaban wrote that Iraq and the Middle East seem bright and prosperous from Stockholm for those who are transported in their luxurious private jets from their air-conditioned and comfortable offices to seven-star hotels and who speak about humanity and peace in a way that humanises them to the audiences of satellite TV. But, as Shaaban asserts, "far away are the people of Palestine and Iraq who smell death and blood and who cannot even find white cloth to wrap their dead children in preparation for their burial." Shaaban warns that between those in Stockholm who express great care about the lives of the Iraqis, and the hell created by them for Iraq and the Iraqis, is a huge gap filled by millions of displaced people and by a way of life that is totally destroyed. "The speeches from Stockholm and from Bush in Colorado are another addition to the propaganda war that hides the truth from the eyes and hearts of people who would love to know."
