The imperial war mongers in Washington tried their best to leave boots on the ground in Iraq. In the end they made one demand the Iraqis refused to meet: legal immunity for United States military personnel. The demand speaks volumes about the arrogance of Washington's professional warriors. How a country that has experienced almost a decade of horrendous bloodletting in a civil war while occupied by a foreign power could consent to such an abrogation of sovereignty without appearing to be a neocolonial possession was completely lost on the war hawks. Of course the White House put the best spin it could on the failure of the high level negotiations for a security arrangement: Obamatron is fulfilling a promise to end the war he made in 2008. But that promise keeping appears to be almost an unintended consequence considering his Defense Secretary was pressing the Iraqis to allow as many as 20,000 US troops to stay behind as late as this month. At one point Secretary Panetta chided Iraqi leaders, saying "Damn it, make a decision." Iraqi politics was against the Pentagon getting its way on the issue. The main opposition party headed by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi linked the immunity issue to choosing the defense minister from his party, something current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was never going to do, and Maiki's position is too weak to ignore his opposition when dealing with the Americans on such a symbolically important concession.
So the long war that never needed to be fought will end sooner, not because of ordinary Americans' desires to see their soldiers come home after 4,400 dead and billions of wasted dollars, but because the Iraqis decided they want to be treated as a sovereign nation in control of events within their borders. Some security experts believe that Iraq is not ready to maintain internal peace and defend its interests against stronger neighbors. Perhaps what is really concerning these imperialists is that Iran will end up being more influential in the region than the United States which spent so much blood and treasure there. Even without a status of forces agreement {"SOFA"}, Americans will still be in Iraq as mercenaries, contractors, embassy personnel and spies. But Iraq's future is now clearly up to its people which is the only proper conclusion to such a wasteful misadventure in "regime change". Bravo, Iraq, good luck, and if you find any WMDs be sure to let us know.