America’s legal relationship with Iraq is falling apart. Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s prime minister, has announced a referendum next January on the agreement that governs US military operations. If voters say No, as most expect, Iraq will withdraw from the accord. Under the terms of the agreement, American troops will then have to leave the country in January 2011, nearly a year earlier than planned.
In putting the agreement at risk, Mr Maliki is doing nothing illegal. On the contrary, he may be offering signs that Iraq’s constitutional democracy – which Americans and its allies have tried so hard to foster – is beginning to work.
The referendum would follow through on a pledge Mr Maliki made last December. Back then, he followed Iraq’s constitution and submitted the accord to parliament for its consent. The assembly agreed, but only on condition that the Iraqi people were given a chance to reverse course at the polls. In pushing ahead with the referendum, Mr Maliki is taking his promise to parliament – and Iraq’s constitution – seriously.
In contrast, George W. Bush defied the US constitution by insisting that he – and he alone – could commit the US to the Iraqi agreement. He refused to ask Congress to approve it even though the American constitution – like the Iraqi one – requires legislative consent. He even refused to give Congress any information about the agreement’s terms until the deal was done. Leading congressmen were forced to follow the negotiations by reading English translations of Arabic texts published in Iraqi newspapers.
Joseph Biden, who was then chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, responded by introducing legislation declaring that the bilateral agreement with Iraq “should involve a joint decision by the executive and legislative branches”. Hillary Clinton, then a senator, went further, asserting that it was “outrageous that the Bush administration would seek to circumvent the US Congress on a matter of such vital interest to national security”. Her bill would have denied all funding to any military agreement that Mr Bush negotiated unilaterally.
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