The end of the occupation of Iraq

The Swords of Qādisīyah, Baghdad (Wikipedia)

The AP reports today that:

The U.S. is abandoning plans to keep U.S. troops in Iraq past a year-end withdrawal deadline, The Associated Press has learned. The decision to pull out fully by January will effectively end more than eight years of U.S. involvement in the Iraq war, despite ongoing concerns about its security forces and the potential for instability.

It is significant to note that this is the culmination of a status of forces agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in 2008, and which the Obama administration (or, rather, the bi-partisan military industrial consensus) has been trying to find a way to weasel out of every since.

Unsuccessfully.  Because whoever holds the political power in Iraq right now, which might mean Muqtada Al-Sadr or even Iran, held firm and demanded the end to military occupation.

While there are plenty of caveats to the U.S. forces' departure, including the remaining thousands of "diplomats" and private contractors to try to protect them, this is still a vindication for those of us who have opposed this illegal war and occupation from the beginning, and aggressive empire building more generally.

But mostly, history will record this as independence day for the new Iraq, whatever form that takes.  I for one hope it doesn't take the form of a theocratic dictatorship or a bloody civil war, but that will be up to the Iraqis. 

And that is as it should be.