The security deal (Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA) would also include legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors. Reactions to this imperialistic proposal, which would make Iraq little more than a US colony, were swift and volatile.
Thousands of Iraqi Shiites demonstrated, Iranian clerics issued Fatwas against the proposed treaty, and the Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr called for a new armed struggle against the American occupation.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s own Da’wa Party suffered a major split, with the most outspoken members leaving to form new political alliances.
Leading U.S. Democrats, including presidential hopeful Barack Obama, have denounced the plan as being a transparent effort to jinx a troop pullout from Iraq.
Bush, they say, wants to use the treaty as proof of "victory" in Iraq, to bolster the electoral chances of Republican John McCain and continue the war indefinitely.
As more details of negotiations were leaked, opposition has mounted. Key Iraqi MPs traveled to Washington to testify before a Congressional panel, where lawmaker Nadim al-Jaberi pleaded with the US "not to embarrass the Iraqi government [by] putting it in a difficult situation" with the agreement.
Facing strong opposition by Iraqi leaders, Prime Minister al-Maliki was forced to declare negotiations deadlocked. Most Iraqi leaders — and most US Democrats and some Republicans — are now saying that negotiations should wait until after the November elections.
But everything we know about George W. Bush suggests that he’ll keep trying behind the scenes to clinch the deal.
If Bush succeeds, Iraq will almost certainly be used to launch military and intelligence operations against Iran and Syria, which will destabilize the entire Middle East.
And Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP and Total — the four oil companies that Saddam nationalized — are negotiating U.S.-brokered, no-bid deals to exploit Iraqi oilfields, guaranteeing disproportionate profits for themselves.
Is it mere coincidence that the oil deal is being discussed now, at the same time as Bush’s security deal? I think not.
If Bush’s machinations are successful, it will give ammunition to every religiously-motivated terrorist in the world, who could point to them as proof that the US wants to occupy Muslim-majority countries for corporate profit and geopolitical advantage.
Clearly, we must fight Bush’s latest outrage.
In the past, the U.S. corporate upper class has wielded influence in the Middle East through a kind of neo-colonialism, in which various forms of persuasion — mainly consisting of bribes and privileges to local proxies — were dispensed by CIA Station Chiefs in various US embassies.
In this way, dictators have been kept in power, and an unchecked oil supply has been guaranteed to the Americans. But oil now costs more to produce; and in the US a new educated constituency has arisen that is concerned about global warming and committed to moving away from dependence on petroleum for fuel.
Finally, the neoconservatives—who believe in permanent war with the Arabic and Muslim-speaking worlds — have lost credibility with most Americans.
That leads us to the present impasse of the Iraqi security deal.
For the first time in a century, a section of the corporate upper class, led by George Bush, is trying to engage in colonialism of the most brutal and obvious kind.
But precisely because they are so sinfully narcissistic and greedy — and so obviously unconcerned about anything but their power and profit — Bush and his friends can be defeated.
Bush’s latest gambit demonstrates the astonishing brutality of his coalition, but if Americans of all faiths work together with the democratic opposition in Iraq — and with people of goodwill everywhere — we can prove to the world, and to ourselves, that colonialism is no longer an option.
Lawrence Swaim is the Executive Director of the Interfaith Freedom Foundation. He taught for eight years at Pacific Union College, and his academic specialties are American Studies and American literature. His column addresses current affairs from an American Christian and Interfaith perspective.
