Word: sofas
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Opponents of the SOFA want the U.S. military to leave Iraq sooner than the 2012 deadline that al-Maliki is pushing for. But many of the sheiks are leaders of the Awakening Councils, the U.S.-funded paramilitaries that helped drive al-Qaeda out of Anbar. They - and thousands of their men - receive salaries from the U.S. military, and they don't want their paymasters to leave any sooner than absolutely necessary...
...kind. With Iraq-wide provincial elections two months away, these Anbari chieftains have banded together under the banner of the Iraqi Tribal Front, and will field candidates in several provinces. So after the compound has filled up, the chanting turns distinctly political. "We are with Nouri al-Maliki on SOFA," they shout, referring to the status of forces agreement that the Iraqi Prime Minister has signed, amid considerable domestic opposition, with...
There's another political motivation behind their support of al-Maliki and the SOFA. The agreement is opposed by the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), the Sunni party loathed by the sheiks. The IIP won control of the Anbar provincial government in the last election, when most of the sheiks boycotted the vote. Now the chieftains want to supplant the IIP as the main voice of Iraq's Sunnis. Backing the SOFA and al-Maliki allows them to distinguish themselves from the IIP. The sheiks, in short, are playing democratic politics...
...time for the main event. A portable dais is hauled into a corner of the quadrangle, and a series of sheiks troop up to it and make brief speeches. Their political inexperience is revealed by their language, which is absurdly over the top. Opponents of the SOFA are denounced as "enemies of Iraq" and "antinationals." There are ad hominem attacks on some of the politicians opposed to the agreement. The IIP is not mentioned by name, but nobody here is in any doubt that most of the vitriol is aimed at it. Some of the speakers come out of left...
...agreement, the government will ask the U.N. to extend the mandate but allow for the possibility that it may last months rather than an entire year. A vote on the agreement is due on Monday, but more disruptions are likely. Al-Sadr has called for a massive anti-SOFA rally in Baghdad on Friday. Maliki will likely launch an eleventh-hour media blitz to try to convince Iraqis that the agreement is the only way forward. It's a good bet Iraqis will remain glued to their TV screens...