OPINION

Tuesday, November 18, 2008 12:55 PM

SOFA Spurs Wide-Ranging Reaction

By AMY HARDER

Columnists, editorial boards and bloggers have a lot to say -- both positive and negative -- about the Iraqi Cabinet's approval of the new status-of-forces agreement, which could help pave the way for Barack Obama's promised withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. The SOFA, which sets a timeline to withdraw U.S. troops from more populous areas 2009 and out of the country entirely by 2011, still needs to be approved by the Iraqi Parliament in a vote scheduled for next week (it's expected to pass).

Here's a rundown of some of the discussion circulating online:

• The Wall Street Journal editorial board has "misgivings about the limits on U.S. forces suggested by the 2009 date," and criticizes Obama's campaign positions on Iraq.

• The Los Angeles Times supports the agreement, contending that it "sends two important messages to the international community: First, the United States truly does not plan a permanent military presence in Iraq, and second, it will not launch attacks on neighbors from Iraq."

• The National Review's Andrew C. McCarthy writes that "without the SOFA, dark choices would face both sides. For the U.S., it would mean operating illegally (at least in the eyes of the world) or withdrawing -- at the risk of forfeiting the hard-won progress of the surge and enhancing, yet again, the credibility of radical Islam's rogues who insist that Americans lack the stomach for the long, bloody fight."
  

• The Philadelphia Inquirer contends that the 2011 timeline "gives Obama more latitude to execute his plan to move troops and materiel to Afghanistan without endangering U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Perhaps before his January inauguration, Obama will also more clearly define his administration's goal in Afghanistan."
  

• The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan asserts that "the great news for Obama is that the Iraqis themselves have insisted that his fixed timetable be set in stone." This means that "the hard right" now "will be unable to say that the chaos and mass murder that will almost certainly follow in 2010 and 2011 is Obama's responsibility. It isn't."

• Writing in USA Today, the Cato Institute's Christopher Preble also highlights the fact that the SOFA is consistent with Obama's position: "The incoming administration should adhere to the Baghdad agreement and reduce -- and, in short order, eliminate the U.S. military presence, as the pact stipulates and as" Obama "has promised."
  

• Everything" that the Chicago Tribune sees "suggests that this plan is not only feasible, it is inevitable. The Iraqis want their country back. They want foreign soldiers out. They want to be in charge of their own affairs."

• State Department spokesman Sean McCormack also addressed the issue at his Monday press briefing. "If this does go forward and you have the Iraqi parliament passing it and it's approved by the Presidency Council, you will have had an agreement signed between the United States and a democratic Iraq, a democratic Iraq that is in the heart of the Middle East. And that will change the Middle East forever, for the positive."