The Elusive Declaration of Peace

The re­main­ing US troops in Iraq are sched­uled to leave by the end of this month. While there had been some talk about ex­tend­ing the De­cem­ber 31, 2011 dead­line Pres­i­dent Obama set early in his term, this was scut­tled in Oc­to­ber when the Iraqi gov­ern­ment re­buffed the ad­min­is­tra­tion on two de­mands: that US troops be guar­an­teed im­mu­nity from pros­e­cu­tion and that the Pen­ta­gon be al­lowed to main­tain bases in the coun­try going for­ward.