THE IRAQI PARLIAMENT’S VOTE TO END U.S. PRESENCE IN IRAQ IS ILL-ADVISED. BUT IT CAN STILL BE NULLIFIED
Washington Kurdish Institute
January 6, 2020
After the assassination of Iranian General Qasim Soleimani, the dominant Iran-affiliated Shia political parties in the Iraqi Parliament did not hesitate to pass a resolution calling on the government to end the presence in Iraq of U.S.-led coalition military forces. This vote was taken in the absence of some major Iraqi political parties and legislators, representing different religious and ethnic communities in the country. Instead the Parliamentary quorum for this vote was fulfilled by the presence of 164 Shiite lawmakers, all of whom with pro-Iranian government sentiments, and 9 Sunni Arab lawmakers, all of whom were also proxies of the Iranian regime. The majority of Sunni lawmakers did not participate in this vote. And none of the Kurdish lawmakers participated — although the Secretary of the Parliament Bashir Haidar, a Kurd, was there, but his role there was more to ensure protocol and rules were followed than to promote or support a particular way of voting.
How the Voting Process was Undertaken
At first, the Iranian-backed blocks in the Parliament rallied intensively to reach a quorum but failed. However, they were successful at reaching a quorum on the second attempt after immensely pressuring the Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament Mohamed al-Halbousi, a politician who, although Sunni, also has ties to and backing from the Iranian government. The resolution that was passed includes four articles. First, it requests that the Iraqi government end its assistance to the U.S.-led coalition in the fight against the terror group of ISIS, reasoning that “victory and liberation have [now] been achieved.” Second, it calls on the Iraqi government to provide statistics on the number of foreign trainers for the Iraqi security forces and their tasks and amount of time spent in the country. The resolution also asks the government to send Iraq’s Foreign Minister to the United Nations Security Council to file a complaint against the United States for “committing serious violations and violations of the sovereignty and security of Iraq.” Finally, the resolution requests the Iraqi government to conduct investigations at the “highest levels” on the U.S. bombing and to officially inform the Parliament of the results within seven days.
Soon after voting, many of these Iranian-affiliated lawmakers celebrated and shouted anti-American slogans inside the hall of Parliament. However, for whatever reason, perhaps out of excitement or confusion, the lawmakers failed to pass the article in the legally required manner.
How Effective this Resolution is?
The measure passed by Iraq’s parliament is a resolution and not a law, and is thus non-binding. This resolution calls the Iraqi government to work to achieve its aims. Doing so would require the passage of new legislation that would cancel existing arrangements.
The 2008 US-Iraq security agreement to main US military presence in Iraq was approved by a law in the parliament. Iraqi law requires that each article of a bill must be discussed and voted on separately, and this would be required of any proposed law concerning the presence of the US military in Iraq.
For example, last month the same parliament voted for a new election bill in response to mounting protests by the Iraqi people who demanded electoral reform. This took several weeks to pass because each article needed to be discussed and voted on.
Separately, there is an argument to be made that the current government of Iraq is not legally able to implement any legislation since the Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi recently resigned and is currently acting as a caretaker until a new prime minister is chosen. His cabinet’s role is also one of caretaker until another government can be formed. Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi resigned following weeks of mass protests against his government, protests that often targeted Iran as a main cause of their discontent. If Abdul-Mahdi’s caretaker government, which has clearly lost legitimacy in the eyes of those who have taken to the streets, proceeds with additional measures which seem to strengthen Iran’s hand in Iraq, protests may intensify.
Indeed, the resolution itself did not specifically target US presence in Iraq, and rather mentioned “foreign troops on Iraqi soil”, and can be interpreted to also refer to Iranian and Turkish forces, and any others who have a presence in Iraq.
What are the Potential Results of this Resolution?
Soleimani played an integral role in overseeing and perpetuating the Iranian theocracy’s negative and destabilizing role in Iraq and the larger region for over a decade. Yet this resolution was about more than just Soleimani’s life or death. The history of this resolution goes back to late 2017, when pro-Iranian block in Parliament called to expel the U.S.-led coalition after the then Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory over ISIS. Such a move is in line with long-standing Iranian plans, since 2003, to push the U.S. out of Iraq.
Yet the reality of such a removal of U.S. presence in Iraq would be serious. It would be tantamount to a security infrastructure sucidie in Iraq, for the short-term and the long-term.
In the short-term, it will only be a matter of time before the ISIS “caliphate” reemerges, especially with its rebound of attacks and presence in both Iraq and Syria (spurred on by Turkey’s further invasion of predominantly Kurdish Syrian territory). Although the physical ISIS “caliphate” was toppled, the presence of ISIS was never completely or effectively defeated in either country. For example, the U.S. coalition has been conducting airstrikes and joint operations on a weekly basis in both Iraq and Syria against remaining ISIS targets. Much of this anti-ISIS fight in Iraq continues to be bolstered by the billions of dollars worth of equipment and training provided by the U.S. government, with the Iraqi military still remaining to operate at an acceptable level against ISIS on its own. Adding to this is the fact that the Iraqi government continues to be submerged in corruption and sectarian conflict, with the Sunni Arab region remaining in tatters after the rise of ISIS and counter-terrorism efforts. Large populations of displaced, unemployed, and poverty-stricken Sunnis in a territory lacking basic infrastructure and governmental services is a recipe for disaster and a fertile recruiting environment for militant Sunni-extremist groups like ISIS.
In the long-term, such an absence of U.S. presence would most likely result in Iraq developing into a state similar to Iran — a state dominated by a Shia theocracy, replete with violent Shia militias. One can already see hints of this today throughout Iraq; for instance during the recent anti-government protests in Iraq many protestors were killed by Shia militias, which were formed by Soleimani and loyal to the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.