Let's come home ASAP: Maliki Takes Hard Line on American Withdrawal

From The Wall Street Journal:

[Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saturday] it would be solely up to Iraq to decide how many trainers it needed. He added that the trainers would enjoy no immunity and would be confined to Iraqi bases. He also quashed the possibility for collaboration with the U.S. in the fight against terror groups like Al Qaeda in arrangements similar to those with countries like Pakistan and Yemen.

"That's what the Iraqi side will decide from a technical standpoint: the required number, without immunity and present inside Iraqi camps for training only," he said. "As for operations and taking part in operations, that's finished."

On Saturday Mr. Maliki sought to ease concerns that Baghdad would firmly move into Iran's orbit of influence after the full withdrawal of American forces and said that Iraq still seeks a special relationship with the U.S.

"We speak about our interest as Iraqis first and we do not speak about the interest of others," he said, without naming Iran.

Ghassan al-Atiyyah, a London-based Iraqi politician and academic, said the breakdown of negotiations between Iraq and the U.S. over immunity sends a message that Washington has lost leverage over the current Iraqi government and opens the door to greater interference by Iraq's neighbors Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia at a very tumultuous and dangerous period for the entire region.

"American withdrawal in this manner, given that Iraq is unstable, opens Pandora's box," he said adding that this could bolster an eventual "Damascus-Baghdad-Tehran axis" in the region.