this morning, the u.s. ambassador to iraq said that the u.s. military would "respect the wishes" of the iraqi government regarding the wall, but he stopped short of saying construction would stop.
so what will happen? ever since the occupation began there's been this tension about who is really in charge. on the one hand, president bush and other political leaders claim that iraq is sovereign and that the elected government has real power. on the other, the u.s. military appears to operate freely in iraq--outside the control of the iraqi government--which would not be possible if iraq were truly sovereign.
another complication is an american domestic political consideration. since the 1990s conservatives have been against letting american soldiers take orders from foreign commanders. never mind that the entire structure of NATO is premised on the idea that NATO commanders will be able to give orders to soldiers from other allied nations, or that u.s. soldiers were often assigned to foreign command units in world war one and two. after making an issue of it in the 1990s, conservatives cannot tolerate any public acknowledgement that american soldiers might take orders from a non-american.
but some of those same conservatives claim that iraq is sovereign, which means that they can only operate in iraq with permission of the iraqi leadership. and "permission" sometimes looks a lot like command. for example, last fall, when an american soldier was kidnapped and was believed to be held in sadr city. the u.s. military imposed a blockade on the neighborhood and set up checkpoints to control the residents movements. the blockade was unpopular with maliki's shia constituency, so he withdrew permission for the u.s. military to operate the checkpoints. the u.s. military complied. but because it looked a lot like u.s. soldiers were operating on the orders of president maliki, the u.s. military insisted that was not what was happening.
A U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington, said American soldiers removed the checkpoints at the order of their commanders. "We take military orders," Withington said.an entire friedman has passed since that incident in sadr city. as far as i can tell ahmed altaie, the kidnapped american soldier, is still missing. and we still haven't resolved the paradox of who is really in control in iraq.
