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Iraq’s neighbors are going to have to start adjusting to a new reality in which U.S. forces will be departing Iraq in three years.

So far it has been a productive week in Baghdad after months of political stagnation. On Nov. 18, a date was set (Jan. 31, 2009) for provincial elections. The day before, the Iraqi Cabinet approved the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the United States and Iraq, setting a hard deadline for U.S. forces to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011. The agreement is now on its way to the Iraqi parliament, where a vote will be held Nov. 24 for final ratification.

The SOFA breakthrough did not come about spontaneously. Iran’s informal endorsement of the deal on Nov. 17 was a signal that a behind-the-scenes diplomatic exchange had likely occurred in which Iran was given sufficient security guarantees to sign off on the agreement and use its influence over Iraq’s main Shiite parties to see the SOFA through parliament. Iran knew it wasn’t about to get its wish of having U.S. forces immediately withdraw from Iraq and leave the door open for Tehran to fill the power vacuum in Baghdad. If an agreement was going to be signed setting a deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq, Iran had to do everything in its power to dictate the terms.

All in all, Iran came out with a decent deal. Iran leaned heavily on its political allies in Baghdad to drive a hard bargain on the SOFA until they came out with an agreement that substantially circumscribed U.S. military power in Iraq. The revised draft of the SOFA not only sets a hard deadline for the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops by the end of 2011, it also bans cross-border attacks from Iraqi soil and technically gives control of Iraqi airspace back to the Iraqis. In reality, the United States will still fly combat patrols and maintain a high level of authority over Iraq’s airspace over the next three years. The United States will also try to maintain an option whereby the Iraqi government can request that a certain number of U.S. forces stay beyond 2011 to maintain stability. But as the SOFA currently stands, Iran is now feeling a lot more secure about having the world’s most formidable military sitting across its western border for the next three years.

The SOFA is still not completely in the clear, however. The document still has to go to Iraq’s parliament for a vote, and some complications might arise if the ailing Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (Iraq’s largest Shiite political party, with close ties to Iran), dies in the coming days. Al-Hakim is a key ally of the Iranians and has been instrumental in negotiating with both the Iranians and the Americans on the SOFA. He has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and has grown critically ill in recent days. His son, Ammar al-Hakim, is likely to replace him and see through the agreement, but the United States is still on guard for any sudden upsets. Moreover, Iran is still bargaining for additional guarantees from the United States, clearly signaling that it could upset the vote in parliament by calling on its allies to resist the agreement via legal means.

But even with these remaining complications, the glass is still looking half full for the SOFA, and Iraq’s neighbors are going to have to start adjusting to a reality in which U.S. forces will be departing Iraq in three years. With the SOFA effect already sinking in, the main regional players — Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Syria — are already starting to prepare for this eventuality.