Barack Obama has successfully turned what is arguably the biggest diplomatic setback of his presidency into a huge electoral asset as he heads into the United States of America’s next presidential poll that will take place a year from now. Obama’s liberal constituency, which had abandoned the president in droves because of his compromises with right-wing America in the last three years, are wildly applauding him for last week’s announcement that all US forces will withdraw from Iraq by the end of this year.

Obama’s announcement cleverly masks the truth that, for at least six months now, he and Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, have been negotiating without success to keep a minimum of 15,000 American troops in Iraq after this year-end’s deadline for withdrawal. That deadline, ironically, was negotiated with the Iraqis not by Obama, but by the administration of his predecessor, George W. Bush, who went to war in 2003 to topple Saddam Hussein. Besides, that number of 15,000 troops would have represented a significant American military presence in Iraq considering that it compares with their current strength of only 39,000 soldiers.

Obama was the only major candidate during the 2008 Democratic Party primaries to have comprehensively opposed the Iraq war without having to carry any baggage or guilty conscience, since he was not on the national scene when Bush invaded Iraq. For instance, unlike Hillary Clinton, who was then a senator from New York who voted for the war, Obama did not have to do so. Obama has all along said during his presidential campaign that he would have voted against the invasion of Iraq. But judging by his record in office of regress from principled positions, it is a claim that was increasingly being viewed with scepticism until last week’s political masterstroke of a total withdrawal from Iraq.

Obama’s sleight of hand on Iraq, which will bring him electoral dividends in November 2012, is that he intended to fulfil the promise he made at Camp Lejeune only in letter, not in spirit. The Pentagon and America’s neo-conservatives all along considered that once they went into Baghdad they owned Iraq. The idea of full or real sovereignty to Iraqis was not something they have ever wanted to concede since the invasion that overthrew Saddam Hussein.

It was widely known in Washington in the aftermath of Obama’s Camp Lejeune address that the promise of an end to America’s military involvement in Iraq by this year’s end was slipped into his speech by his close election aides who had made Iraq a campaign priority in 2008. They were able to do so because the ‘establishment’ in Washington had not yet taken hold of the new president. It was equally known that the Pentagon was against any such complete withdrawal. Proof of this was the debate that ensued over Obama’s Camp Lejeune speech in which the Pentagon spoke in vague terms of the need for flexibility regarding any pullout from Iraq with a clear deadline. This debate was also laced with talk about what came to be known as the “residual” American forces which would remain in Iraq or its vicinity after 2011 disguised as advisers, trainers and counter-terrorism forces — to mention a few such terms.

Gradually, as 2011 dawned, the Pentagon had its way and it began negotiating with al-Maliki’s government about keeping about 15,000 American soldiers in Iraq after the so-called American withdrawal. But the prime minister, who began as Washington’s quisling in the aftermath of the Bush invasion, turned out to be more than a match for Obama.

Al-Maliki lacked the clout to throw out the Americans lock, stock and barrel even if he wanted to do so at all. If the Pentagon wanted to keep troops in Iraq, clearly the shaky prime minister could not stand up and refuse the demand. But al-Maliki hit upon an idea that virtually every Iraqi with any sense of self-esteem and patriotism was bound to support.

Negotiators from the Pentagon and the state department were demanding that American troops who remained in Iraq should receive legal immunity for their actions in that country. Al-Maliki not only refused but gradually built up a groundswell of backing from every segment of Iraqi opinion against immunity for US military personnel. In doing so, al-Maliki pretended all the time that he was helpless in selling the American proposal to his people.

American excesses at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison and indiscriminate killings by trigger-happy US defence contractors in Baghdad were still fresh in the minds of Iraqis of every persuasion. They were not willing to hand the Pentagon a blank cheque which would allow US troops that stayed on in Iraq beyond 2011 to continue with their waywardness. Besides, a very large number of Iraqis believe that they are worse off after the US invasion of their country and resent any American military presence.

Talks on keeping US forces beyond the Bush-Obama deadline broke down not on the question of any numbers but on the issue of immunity. For Obama, it would have been political suicide to let his troops stay on in Iraq without such immunity. In the years since the 2003 invasion, the Americans had got used to literally getting away with murder. The Iraqis had now decided that enough was enough.

The Pentagon and the state department realized far too late that they had misjudged al-Maliki’s staying power and his ability to wiggle. In a desperate effort to retain America’s foothold in Baghdad, Obama’s defence secretary, Leon Panetta, personally entered the talks and offered a few weeks ago to slash the number of residual US forces to about 4,000. But by then, Iraq’s opposition to immunity had hardened to a point where the issue was no longer negotiable.

Obama is among the cleverest of politicians of his generation and he concluded that he could actually make political windfall out of the hole into which the Pentagon and the state department had dug themselves. His White House announcement last week about ending the war was more political than military.

His aides quickly reminded the American people that “in 2008, in the height of the presidential campaign, then-Senator Obama made a promise to give our military a new mission: ending the war in Iraq”. In a dig at Republicans, they pointed out that the president has been “as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in”.

With an eye on votes, Obama said in his announcement that “the United States is moving forward, from a position of strength. The long war in Iraq will come to an end by the end of this year. The transition in Afghanistan is moving forward, and our troops are finally coming home”. The capture of Muammar Gaddafi and the winding down of Western military operations in Libya will also help the president.

But is America really moving forward from a position of strength, as Obama claims? Like al-Maliki in Iraq, President Hamid Karzai, whom the Americans put in office, has not only consolidated independent power, but has successfully resisted Washington’s attempts to remove him from office. Karzai said last week that “God forbid, if any time war erupts between Pakistan and America, Afghanistan will side with Pakistan”.

Al-Maliki’s government, meanwhile, is providing key support to Syria’s embattled President Bashar al-Assad, whom Washington would like to see replaced. It may have been a trailer about Iraq’s future that even as Obama was announcing US withdrawal from Iraq, Turkish warplanes and helicopter gunships crossed into northern Iraq and bombed the semi-autonomous Kurdish population there in retaliation for attacks on Turkey.