Iraqis Step Forward as U.S. Pulls Back

After rather peaceful elections in Iraq on Saturday, U.S. troops are finally starting to step back. In the days before the elections, people were able to drive safely from the Turkish border in the north to Baghdad and south to Basra without seeing an American convoy. In the Green Zone, the primary PX is set to close and Americans have returned to their embassy compound.

Most Iraqis are ready for Americans to leave. Many feel that they can handle problems on their own and that American involvement has only made some matters worse and more confusing. The American military is worried about security in the provinces of Nineveh and Diyala, where counterinsurgency operations are still going on, and where there are signs of activity by Sunni extremist groups. However, the military also sees this as a test of Iraq's political stability, to see whether Iraqis can handle and resolve their sectarian and ethnic tensions.

However, no matter how much the U.S. pulls back, Iraq and the U.S. will always be interdependent. The Iraqis still need U.S. troops to lessen terrorist activities, and protect them from their neighbors, Syria and Iran, while the U.S. still needs Iraq as "a strategic prize close to the Middle East flash points of Israel, Lebanon and Syria as well as Iran and the oil-rich Persian Gulf countries." The Iraqi Parliament and the U.S. settled a security agreement in November that sealed the date of departure: by the end of 2011.