“The Iraqi demands are unacceptable to the Americans, and the American demands are unacceptable to the Iraqis, and the result is that we have reached an impasse,” the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, said during a meeting with journalists in Jordan. “The Iraqis will not consent to an agreement that infringes their sovereignty.”
Alissa J. Rubin, "Talks With U.S. on Security Pact Are at an Impasse, the Iraqi Prime Minister Says," New York Times 14 June 2008
In my experience in matters diplomatic, when the other sides deploys the "S" word, they've reached for their big guns. Not that Iraq out-guns the United States in any sense of the term - but that is exactly when negotiators reach for the "S" word. When the imbalance of power is such that the weaker party can only fall back on its cherished sovereignty, in the face of the other side that holds all the cards... except the ultimate one in diplomacy: "Are you messing with my sovereignty?"
This argument, of course, only works when the weaker party is dealing with a country that is sensitive to sovereignty matters. A dictatorship might not care a hoot about a neighbor's sovereignty, especially if there are already hostile relations prevailing. Democracies, however, are usually mindful of touching someone's sovereignty buttons. The US usually cares, for example, when the country that raises the sovereignty defense possesses something that the US wants.
Sometimes nations will deploy the sovereignty defense over the silliest of issues: I recall a matter of a conference in Africa that was sure to founder on the shoals of disrespect for Nigerian sovereignty, were the US co-sponsors to dismiss the requirement for "hostesses in national dress" at the opening ceremony (said hostesses being the girlfriends, mistresses, daughters and nieces of ministers and other Big Men). The Americans caved, and had to pay for the hostesses' nice outfits. Sovereignty prevailed.
In the case of the current negotiations in Iraq, however, the stakes are anything but trivial. And the leverage exerted by the US is considerable. It's not just the 140,000 or so troops occupying the country; I refer you to veteran Iraq reporter Patrick Cockburn of London's The Independent, who was interviewed on June 12 on Democracy Now! Said Cockburn:
Iraqi reserves, Iraqi money, is in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It dates from 1990, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, and there are still sanctions against Iraq as a danger to the rest of the world. That money, about $50 billion, is in the bank. But there have been many court cases brought against it. It’s protected currently by a Presidential immunity. And what US negotiators in Baghdad have been implying to their Iraqi counterparts is that if they don’t cut a deal on American terms, then that Presidential immunity might lapse at the end of the year, and the Iraqis wouldn’t be able to get their hands on these massive reserves, which they need very badly.
$50 billion is serious leverage.
Cockburn, who has reported on this story extensively, has pointed out how the evolving (or stalled, according to al-Maliki) talks are not classic "Status of Forces Agreement" (SOFA) negotiations, over technical issues (APO postal delivery, PX privileges, duty-free Commissary imports - all those nice things that mark the American presence in places like Germany, Italy, or Japan), but talks whose outcome
... really will determine whether Iraq is an independent country or not. Or will it be a client state of the US?... the US negotiators were demanding initially fifty-eight bases. They’re not calling them permanent bases, though that’s exactly what they are. The bases might have, let’s say, an Iraqi soldier outside and a single strand of barbed wire, in which case the Iraqis will supposedly be in charge of their defense, so it won’t be an American base. But everybody knows that it is. Then there’s the question of immunity for American soldiers and Iraqi contractors, i.e. they won’t come under Iraqi law. And the US will also control airspace and have various other rights. Now, although Ryan Crocker and President Bush are saying Iraq under this new agreement will once again be a sovereign nation, most of the rights we associate with a sovereign nation will be in the possession of the US.
The always vigilant Helena Cobban ("Just World News") has much more detail on what's in the "SOFA" (and when all this got started), in her analysis of just-released National Security Archive documents.
Next time you hear PM al-Maliki use the word "sovereignty," consider the context, the stakes in these negotiations, and the relative leverage of the two parties. As Cockburn says, Iraq since the early 1990's (no-fly zones, oil-for-food, sanctions) has experienced years of "diminished formal sovereignty." They went from years of Saddam's sovereignty-within-constraints to - despite purple fingers - CPA "Orders" and now a SOFA-defined future. No wonder they're a bit touchy about that "S" word.