Will Obama Really End the Iraq War?

Chris Hondros/Getty Images With Iraq’s parliament poised to pass the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) next week, it’s time for the president-elect to say where he stands on the withdrawal timetable.

What does President-elect Barack Obama mean when he says he will end the war in Iraq?

For all practical purposes, the nearly 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq today perform something closer to a peace-keeping mission than an all-out war with major combat operations. Indeed, it has been a while since we’ve heard of a substantial mobilization of forces inside the country, while casualties on the American side have declined to the lowest levels since the war started.

With Al-Qaeda in Iraq largely incapacitated, and the pro-Iranian militias, such as the Mahdi Army, all but contained, the so-called war in Iraq appears to be morphing into an extension of the broader war on terror. So when Obama says he plans to end the war, the question is, first: whom does he identify as “the enemy” in the soon-to-end war? And second: is he willing to end this war even if “the enemy” decides to resume fighting and the country veers, again, toward civil war?

Sources say the SOFA is now backed by 143 members of parliament in the 275-member house, with 41 Sunni members of the “Accord Front” still undecided.

So far, the President-elect has made no substantive comment on the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), which Iraq’s cabinet approved last Sunday, and which is now undergoing a third reading in parliament. Although the SOFA timetable differs very little from the plan Obama proposed during the campaign, he has yet to say he would honor the agreement. So much for campaign slogans.

To be fair, however, circumstances on the ground have prompted both Obama and Bush to adjust their withdrawal plans to the point where there is little difference between the two. So Obama may be content to let the Bush administration make a deal. The notion of leaving Defense Secretary Robert Gates in his job under a new administration, for a few months at the very least, suggests that Obama has no intention to rock the boat on the Bush plan.

In all likelihood, the Iraqi parliament will pass the agreement with a comfortable majority by next week, despite the opposition of Iranian-backed elements such as Shiite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr. According to well-informed Iraqi sources, the SOFA is now backed by 143 members of parliament -- including 87 members of the government’s coalition and 56 Kurdish members—and opposed by 106 members in the 275-member house. The 41 Sunni members of the “Accord Front” have not yet decided either way.

Needless to say, “ending the war” does not end U.S. military engagement in Iraq under either Bush’s or Obama’s plan. Both project a “residual force” of 40,000 to 55,000 U.S. troops that would remain past a pullout of combat brigades that could occur in 2010 at the earliest, or 2011 at the latest, whether or not permanent military bases are established in Iraq.