Simply stated, it is not obvious to me (and may well be due to simple ignorance on my part) that the natural reaction of Maliki not getting as many troops as he originally wanted would be to refuse to give legal protection to ANY troops, thereby letting Obama off the hook to provide protection.
Indeed, one would think the adage about half a pie being better than none, particularly when said “pie” could well be viewed as a trip switch or trigger to further American involvement (a la South Korea, Cold War West Germany, and Post War Japan) should the task prove more than the allotted forces could handle.
I in no way intended to imply you bear a responsibility to dig deeper into the Cheney rationale. I simply assumed you would share my suspicions (talk about projection), but chose to follow the party line for whatever reason.
Please forgive my presumption, but let me assure you it is born out of the deepest of respect for your opinion as you have articulated it through the years.
I am reluctant to post this over my name because it is probably only fragments but I seem to remember something that I heard but I do have the impression that Cheney was saying that the Iraqis felt that Obama's ultimate offer of only 3000 troops was so pathetically inadequate that it would cause them more problems with domestic politics and avail them nothing in terms of actual military force. This is a separate consideration from Maliki wanting freedom to oppress Sunnis, it means that he was under pressure from factions in his own government who are simply anti-American and he could not justify taking the political hit when there was no military value.
If you look closely at Cheney's actual words from the transcript he does cite these factors:
"believed that we weren’t serious"-which I take to mean that Obama's offer was so small that it was believed to be frivolous.
"believed… that Obama was absolutely committed to completely withdraw from Iraq"-meaning that negotiations were a charade and therefore not worth pursuing.
" unable to come to an agreement, but I think in part because the Iraqis didn’t think he really wanted one and he certainly didn’t push it."-Meaning Obama did not push it. Is Cheney alluding to information he derived directly from Iraqi sources?
"We have agreements like that with 40 nations around the world. They should have been able to come to an agreement with the Iraqis"-meaning that it was easily obtainable as evidenced by other agreements and its absence confirms lack of desire on Obama's part.
Elsewhere in the transcript Cheney avers that 3000 troops was inadequate to do the job.
This only explores Cheney's mindset, of course it does not tell us what the Iraqis were thinking. It's quite possible that there was no agreement obtainable because Maliki did not want American troops to interfere with his plans to put the screws to the Sunnis. That opens the question whether Obama should have intimidated Maliki into such an agreement or whether Obama and Maliki were both delighted with the impasse for different reasons.
I cannot close without observing that this is one more piece of evidence of Bush's naïveté over the malevolent intentions of Obama.
