Roads to Iraq

We know Iran position from SOFA, and yesterday we knew Syria’s position from the same pact, but what about Saudi Arabia?

This is the op-ed appeared today on the official Saudi newspaper Al-Watan:

The American insistence and pressure on the Iraqi side to pass this agreement raises questions about the U.S. agenda to secure long-term presence in Iraq, and the undeclared Washington’s ambitions in the region.

In this complex situation a question remains; if the Iraqi people had fulfill the U.S. administration’s desire and agreed to sign this security agreement, will it be enough to achieve political stability in the country and provide security stability?

All efforts have been made by the American Administration to get out from the Iraqi problem ended in low results. In this situation of imposing the draft security agreement, there is a real fear that the possibility to return to square one, bombings, assassinations and suicide bombings.

- Reported on Syrian newspaper Al-Watan saying that the Syrian customs authority rejected a shipment came from “World Relief” as an aid for Iraqi refugees in Syria is contaminated with rat’s feces.

Laboratory analysis shoes the presence of the following materials in the rice:

1- The presence of dead insects.
2- The presence of mice and rat’s feces.
3- The presence of rotting and decomposed rice in some bags.

- Still a vague position from SOFA, Sistani said today that he will wait until the last minute to say the final word.

Sayyid Sistani would prohibit any damage to Iraq’s sovereignty.

- Al-Watan says that Sistani waits for the Iraqi parliament to approve the security agreement, but he didn’t mention the any public referendum to accept or reject the agreement.

The newspaper also reported that The United Iraqi Alliance and the Kurdish Coalition also rejected the idea of putting SOFA in a referendum.

- A new confrontation just started between Maliki and the Kurds for two reasons: 1) Maliki asked for more authorities, admitting the mistakes made in writing the constitution [full speech in Arabic]. 2) Maliki’s attempt to form “Support Councils” in Kirkuk [there is even a new law that bans Kurdish-language teaching in Kirkuk's schools].

These issues raised concern among the Kurds which caused quarrel between Maliki and his Kurd deputy Barham Salih who criticized Maliki’s one party domination policy.

Another criticism came from the head of the Kurdish coalition Fouad Ma’soom saying on Radio Nawa: “We reject the formation of any irregular armed groups”.

Voice of Russia interviewed a Russian expert in Iraq affairs called Viktor Raevski, saying:

The U.S. is using the Kurdish issue to pressure the Iraqi political blocs. The Americans know that most of the Sunnis and Shiites are against the U.S. presence in their country, unlike the Kurds who count on Washington support.

Also, must not forget that Kurdistan is rich with oil and the U.S. is still push toward passing the new oil law, if adopted, that will gives oil companies the lion share.