Foreign Policy Research Institute E-Notes A Catalyst for Ideas Distributed via Email and Posted at www.fpri.org September 2011 U.S. FOREIGN POLICY IN POST-SOFA IRAQ By Eric Davis Eric Davis (
[email protected]) is professor of political science at Rutgers University and former director of Rutgers’ Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He is the author of Memories of State: Politics, History, and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq (University of California Press, 2005), and the forthcoming Taking Democracy Seriously in Iraq (Cambridge University Press, 2012). The end of 2011 will mark a watershed in U.S.-Iraqi relations. The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that the United States and Iraq signed in December 2008 calls for all American forces to leave Iraq by December 31, 2011. While it is still unclear whether U.S. troops will remain in Iraq beyond this year, there is little doubt that U.S.-Iraqi relations will undergo significant change. What will that change look like? Will it mean a substantial decline in U.S. influence in Iraq? In light of Iraq‟s strategic importance both in the Middle East, and to U.S. regional interests, as well as the importance of its continued efforts at democratization, what form should U.S. policy take after the drawdown of U.S. troops? U.S. policy in post-SOFA Iraq will need to focus on five main areas of mutual interest to both countries, all of which are interrelated. Their focal points include: security, governance and institution building, democracy promotion, economic growth and development, and regional, bi-lateral relations.