Status of Forces Agreement: It all depends

Two years ago, it was the issue in the presidential campaign. Now it's an afterthought, an inside-the-A-section story. Iraq, where the United States is spending $10 billion or so a month, has dropped out of view and was a minor issue in the presidential campaign.

Iraq's Cabinet has now approved a Status of Forces Agreement that calls for removing U.S. troops from Iraqi cities next summer and have all U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of 2011. President-elect Barack Obama made Iraq the centerpiece of his early campaign, but it's no longer at the top of his agenda. The global financial crisis has taken over as the only issue that matters.

Despite the agreement negotiated by the Bush administration, which nearly matches Obama's own intentions to get U.S. troops out of Iraq as quickly and carefully as possible, I'm not convinced that the withdrawal plan will work. It depends largely on Iraqi troops' ability to maintain security without U.S. support, and it depends on Iraqi politicians' ability to set aside sectarian differences and compromise for the common good. That's a concept unfamiliar to Iraq's spiteful sects.

If neighborhood security fails when U.S. troops pull out of Iraqi cities, the whole deal could fall apart. Obama wants U.S. troops out of Iraq for myriad reasons, not the least of which is his plan to use the money wasted in Iraq to bolster his domestic agenda. But he's smart enough to know that he can't afford to pull troops out if they are leaving behind a chaotic, dysfunctional government.

Unless Iraqi troops step up and prove they can keep Shi'ite and Sunni militias at bay, and unless Iraqi politicians can put aside their generations-old differences and compromise for the common good, this Status of Forces Agreement will be a useless document.