Can Iraq really be considered a "sovereign nation" if the Bush administration is "thrusting new strategy" on its leadership

January 9, 2007

News Analysis

Bush’s Task: Thrusting New Strategy on ‘a Sovereign Nation’

By HELENE COOPER

WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 — It’s a refrain that President Bush and his top deputies have uttered many times over:

“Iraq is a sovereign nation, and we stay because they have asked us to be there,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in October.

“Iraq is a sovereign nation which is conducting its own foreign policy,” President Bush said in November.

“It’s a sovereign nation; it’s their system, they make those decisions,” Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, the American command’s chief spokesman in Iraq, said last week.

Now, as President Bush prepares to unveil his new strategy for Iraq on Wednesday night, the question is this: Can American officials compel the Iraqis to follow the new American plan?

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