Iraq Press Roundup

The Iraqi newspapers Monday carried articles discussing the bilateral security agreement reached between Baghdad and Washington.

The independent Shabab al-Iraq news agency said the agreement, set to replace the expiring U.N. mandate, was forced on the Iraqi government.

The agreement between Iraq and Washington

The occupying forces imposed the agreement and its articles on Baghdad with no respect for the sovereignty and economy of Iraq. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, for his part, is in denial of the Washington version of the draft as Washington began using rhetoric suggesting security gains would collapse if Baghdad did not sign onto the agreement.

But what puts the situation in a state of confusion, the news agency said, are comments made by officials in Iraqi Kurdistan. Kurdish President and leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party Massoud Barzani said if Baghdad did not sign onto the agreement, U.S. forces would set up military bases in the north of the country. These comments from the Kurdish leader show that indeed Iraq lacks sovereignty or a valid constitution.

The Iraqi government newspaper, al-Sabah, said Monday that the U.S. presidential elections in early November unveiled several theories, including one that says the elections were international in nature as the campaigns focused on global issues in order to sequester more votes.

Obama and the learned lesson

Countries that once had described the United States as a racist and domineering country became supportive when Barack Obama won the elections Nov. 4. Now many countries see the president-elect with his African heritage as a person who may bring dignity and human rights to all of humankind.

Obama, in his defense of global human rights, became a supporter of Israel as well. The governments that expressed support and congratulated the president-elect are forgetting he is defending the state that continues to violate the rights of the Palestinians.

The governments in the Middle East should learn from the lessons of the U.S. presidential contest and realize the hypocrisy of world politics, understanding power is for the strongest and has no place for the weak.

Al-Bayyna newspaper of the Iraqi Hezbollah Party raised questions on whether the change in the skin color of the incoming American president would equate to a change in U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Did America change, or is it Obama who is going to change it?

With the election of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States, the Iraqi people are looking to Washington for positive change regarding the U.S. troop presence in Iraq. The Palestinians, meanwhile, hope Obama will support their cause, while the Iranians assume the ghosts of war have disappeared.

But those hopes are skewed, as Obama ran on a campaign message of change, but perhaps only to shore up the economic situation for everyday Americans.

Meanwhile, history shows that the United States has always fixed its financial crises at the expense of other countries and if any change occurred elsewhere, it was often for the worse.

On the matter of the U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, Obama promised to pull each and every soldier out of the country and replace them with two civilians in an effort to continue stealing the wealth of the Iraqi people.

A U.S. president of any color will have to comply with the policies of his administration and adhere to a system that puts the best interests of the people first.