September Morn

There's a lot of rhetorical laying down of law over Iraq, with Democrats and Republicans alike screaming "September! And this time we MEAN it!"

Congressional leaders from both political parties are giving President Bush a matter of months to prove that the Iraq war effort has turned a corner, with September looking increasingly like a decisive deadline.

In that month, political pressures in Washington will dovetail with the military timeline in Baghdad. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commanding general in Iraq, has said that by then he will have a handle on whether the current troop increase is having any impact on political reconciliation between Iraq's warring factions. And fiscal 2008, which begins Oct. 1, will almost certainly begin with Congress placing tough new strings on war funding.

"Many of my Republican colleagues have been promised they will get a straight story on the surge by September," said Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.). "I won't be the only Republican, or one of two Republicans, demanding a change in our disposition of troops in Iraq at that point. That is very clear to me."

"September is the key," said Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a member of the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds defense. "If we don't see a light at the end of the tunnel, September is going to be a very bleak month for this administration."

I pretty much agree with Atrios that this is pretty much a useful fiction, and I'm wondering if the Administration itself is planting the seed just to get through these few months so they can get the Congress off their backs for a few months. I mean, John Boehner has given deadlines before. So has Trent Lott. But the next Friedman Unit rolls around, and the and the same rhetoric of surrender is frothed by crazy wingnuts, and nothing changes.

If you want to talk about deadlines, however, I'd say that May 15 is a more firm one:

Iraq's top Sunni official has set a deadline of next week for pulling his entire bloc out of the government -- a potentially devastating blow to reconciliation efforts within Iraq. He also said he turned down an offer by President Bush to visit Washington until he can count more fully on U.S. help.

Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi made his comments in an interview with CNN. He said if key amendments to the Iraq Constitution are not made by May 15, he will step down and pull his 44 Sunni politicians out of the 275-member Iraqi parliament.

"If the constitution is not subject to major changes, definitely, I will tell my constituency frankly that I have made the mistake of my life when I put my endorsement to that national accord," he said.

That would be the end of the national unity government, and a prelude to a full-on civil war. Maybe Republicans can wait a few months (maybe Democrats can too, as it looks like they'll be funding the way through at least July with no strings), but in Baghdad, there's one week left. Sometimes life doesn't fall under a set timeline.