According to al Jazeera, the new Status of Forces Agreement being negotiated with Iraq calls for no permanent bases bases there.
There's also a couple more highlights in the article that could make things a lot easier in the long term.
The U.N. mandate for our presence expires in December, so the Bush Administration needs to reach a deal with its Iraqi government in order to justify our further presence there. The administration says its close, telling al Jazeera they expect to have one by the end of July.
We all know that and we've been expecting the deal to include provisions for large, permanent bases in Iraq, a la S. Korea, Japan, and Germany. But, there may be a glimmer of hope.
The US government is close to reaching an agreement with the Iraqi government over its long term military role in the country but will not seek permanent bases in the nation...
David Satterfield, a senior adviser on Iraq at the US state department, told Al Jazeera that the agreement would make explicit that the US was not seeking permanent military bases in the country.
The Sofa agreement and the strategic frameworks agreement will make explicit that there is no desire for, indeed there is a rejection of permanent bases. We could not be clearer on this point,
he said.
The article quickly points out that al Sadr has called for protests of the deal and the Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani forbids any agreement with the "US occupiers."
The Iraqi ambassador Samir al-Sumaida'ie puts the best face on the agreement, saying that it wouldn't "tie the hands of any future government in Iraq or any future administration in the US".
He continued that the whole deal can be terminated in two years. So, if Sen. Obama wins and decides to bring troop levels below the promised amount he can and that would be about 18 months into his term, which would be about right, since these things take planning. And if Sen. McCain wins, we're invading Iran anyway, so we'll need the bases.
The part of me trying to convince the rest of me that this may be true and might happen this way has to believe this was more at the Iraqis insistence. They have been more and more defiant of the US over the latest months, plus they'd be ostracized (to put it mildly) if they signed away permanent bases.
The American side taking the initiative on the announcement reinforces that line of thought. By doing so, they can save face by claiming that they don't want to say. But the devil's in the details and the details came from the Iraqis. (Of course that could be simply because those were the sources al Jazeera chose to ask.)
Lastly, the article mentions Congress's efforts to force the president to get their approval first. Personally, I still don't understand how we ever could sign such a deal with any nation without Senatorial approval, to me, it's a treaty.
Now I know, I have the same cynical feelings about what the Administration may pull, but on its face this whole article is about as optimistic for a long-term scenario as you may hope from these guys. That's why, I'm wrote this as an optimistic diary.