Should U.S. Stay or Go? Views Define Iraqi Factions

Iraq now has a choice of whether American troops stay or go at the end of this year, but United States officials have said time is running out to make a decision. The debate rippling across the country reflects a nation still struggling with issues of sectarian identity, national pride and how to secure its future.

For many Iraqis, it is a decision with two bad choices: remaining beholden to a foreign power many still view as an occupier or charting a perilous new future on their own.

“We can choose now,” said Mustafi Ali, 26, holding an Arabic translation of an American political philosophy book while trolling the stalls recently on Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. “But it’s not useful. Both choices are bad.”

But like many important milestones of the war, from ratifying a constitution in 2005 to negotiating a security agreement in 2008 to setting elections in 2010 and forming a government afterward, Baghdad is marching to its own clock, not to the one in Washington, where affairs of state are harnessed to the dictates of election schedules and the 24-hour news cycle.

The decision could prove to be one of the most momentous ones yet of Iraq’s young democracy. As Iraqis debate the issue on the streets and in the mosque, the discussion often pivots on symbolic matters of national dignity and has less to do with whether Iraq can remain secure without the help of the United States military.

“It’s a golden opportunity for the Iraqi government to have the decision of whether or not U.S. troops stay or leave in its hand, to show to the Iraqi people that the government has sovereignty,” said Majid Mohammadi, a college student in Anbar Province.

Iraqis are also asking themselves a simple question with no simple answer: Will the country become more or less violent if the Americans leave?

Many Iraqis, especially in the northern areas where Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens compete for land, believe that the American presence is a buffer against an ethnic civil war.

But elsewhere, Iraqis who were inclined to see the Americans stay now worry that if they do, their presence could cause new violence set off by insurgent groups like the Mahdi Army, the militia loyal to the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

“I prefer that the U.S. forces leave Iraq because then extremists wouldn’t have an excuse to carry guns,” said Amira Jwad, 35, a government worker in Najaf.

Last month, Mr. Sadr said he would order his men to attack United States forces if they stayed. A member of Parliament from Mr. Sadr’s party was recently quoted in an Iraqi published report as saying that the party would recruit foreign fighters to take on the American forces. A spokesman for the party later said that it had no intention of recruiting the fighters.

The most fervent opposition can be found in Sadr City, the Shiite slum in Baghdad that represents the heart of Mr. Sadr’s constituency. On a recent Friday before prayers began, Najim Abbas, a young house painter, echoed what many there say when asked about Mr. Sadr’s threat to reconstitute his militia.

“Whatever he says, we will do,” Mr. Abbas said. “We will keep on resisting until the last days of our lives.”

Once prayers began, the preacher cast the American issue as the most important one facing the Iraqi people.

“Government services are important, but there are things that are more important than these things, which is the U.S. withdrawal according to the agreement,” the preacher said. “We need to make this decision now. We don’t want to wait. If we do, they will say, ‘We don’t have enough time to withdraw.’?”

The agreement between the United States and Iraq requires all American troops to leave the country by the end of 2011, barring a request from the Iraqis to extend their presence.

In the corridors of power, no politician, not even Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, seems to want ownership of the issue.