The Foreign Service Journal, March 2010

M A R C H 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 19 the treaty is implemented, Iraqis would replace his government with “another Islamist government.” Al-Maliki was summoned to Tehran for a three-day dressing- down (June 7-9, 2008) that led to his announcement, on June 13 in Am- man, that negotiations with the United States had reached “a dead end and a deadlock.” Informants in government-affiliated think-tanks told me that he had had “difficult” meetings, as one put it, with Khamenei and with the Revolutionary Guard gener- als who oversee Iraqi policy. Soon thereafter, Iranian news- papers reported, al-Maliki’s defense minister signed a mutual security accord with his Iranian counterpart. It has never been made public. The deadlock between Baghdad and Washington ended when the Bush administration agreed that the pro- jected security agreement would have a “time horizon.” And on Nov. 18, 2008, after hag- gling over seven drafts, a final ver- sion of the agreement was adopted, providing for the full withdrawal of U.S. combat forces by Dec. 31, 2011. To cover its retreat, the White House maintained that the success of the “surge” policy had enabled Iraq to stand on its own, re- leasing pent-up nationalist opposi- tion to the presence of foreign soldiers. This, in turn, had supposedly compelled al-Ma- liki to insist on a withdrawal timetable so that his oppo- nents could not use nationalism against him in the forthcoming elections. But what this explanation omitted was the crucial role that Iran had played in al-Maliki’s con- version. Alireza Sheikhattar, who was first deputy foreign min- ister when I visited Tehran in June 2008, told me that Iran would not allow the continued operation of U.S. air bases F O C U S What remains missing from the U.S. posture is a readiness to acknowledge that Tehran, too, has security concerns.