BY THE end of this year United States troops will have been occupying Iraq for over five and a half years, fighting their enemies there for longer than in each of the two world wars. For much of this time they have had legal cover in a United Nations Security Council resolution which ends in December.
Intense negotiations between US and Iraqi officials are nearly completed on an agreement to replace that arrangement. A sharp reduction in violence and a growth in nationalist confidence on the Iraqi side have produced surprises in the draft. A date for withdrawing US troops by 2011 seems likely, along with much tighter restrictions on their freedom of action until then.
This is a welcome shift in the Iraqi balance of power and towards the restoration of Iraqi sovereignty. Until recently the Bush administration has steadfastly refused to set a date for withdrawing the 145,000 US troops in Iraq, saying they should stay indefinitely until conditions are more conducive to stabilising that state and the surrounding region. Under pressure from a more assertive Iraqi government, which is better able to control its territory and in more command of its armed forces and bureaucracy, this US stance has had to shift. Bargaining on a timetable for withdrawal ranged from a US proposal of 2015 compared to an Iraqi one of 2010. Other Iraqi demands include an end to US patrols of Iraqi towns and villages by next June, an Iraqi government veto on US arrests of their nationals, no judicial immunity for US troops and no commitment to long-term US bases on Iraqi territory.
Yesterday's handover of Anbar province to Iraqi troops symbolises these changed circumstances. Anbar, in the west of the country, was the centre of al-Qaeda's vicious campaign against US and Iraqi troops until the military surge ordered by Mr Bush combined with a switch of allegiance by local Sunni leaders to undermine it over the last year. The governing coalition in Baghdad reflects these changes. It has growing Sunni support and has also benefited from the suspension of armed action by the Shia forces led by Moqtada al-Sadr. This is not to say it, as yet, commands full support from the Iraqi population; but any new deal with the US must pass through its parliament and pass muster in forthcoming elections. It is impossible to see that happening if it is agreed to permit permanent US bases in Iraq and to give its troops immunity from Iraqi law.
The presence of US forces in Iraq is now coming to the centre ground of the US presidential campaign. The shape of this deal is much closer to demands made by Barack Obama for an 18-month deadline on withdrawing US troops than to John McCain's case that they should have an indefinite mandate. There are pressing economic reasons for scaling down a war costing the US exchequer $10 billion a month. In addition, foreign policy debate has shifted from Iraq to Georgia, which sharply underlines the limits of US power to contain Russia. A US or Israeli attack on Iran seems inconceivable now, but the Iraqi experience will still suffuse the last stage of the campaign.