The Withdrawal Chronicles

OK, so there are a lot of reports adding color to this US-Iraq agreement on a withdrawal timetable.

Iraqi and U.S. officials said several difficult issues remain, including whether U.S. troops will be subject to Iraqi law if accused of committing crimes. But the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were unauthorized to discuss the agreement publicly, said key elements of a timetable for troop withdrawal once resisted by President Bush had been reached.

"We have a text," Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said after a day-long visit Thursday by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

There are two departures here: one from the major Iraqi cities, scheduled for next summer (something counter to the counter-insurgency strategy), and one removing combat troops from the country, scheduled for the end of 2011. The move from the cities coincides with the transfer of the "Sons of Iraq" program, the payment of Sunnis to continue fighting Al Qaeda, to the Iraqi government. Now, the Maliki government doesn't want the Sunnis integrated into the security forces:

West of Baghdad, former insurgent leaders contend that the Iraqi military is going after 650 Awakening members, many of whom have fled the once-violent area they had kept safe. While the crackdown appears to be focused on a relatively small number of leaders whom the Iraqi government considers the most dangerous, there are influential voices to dismantle the American backed movement entirely.

“The state cannot accept the Awakening,” said Sheik Jalaladeen al-Sagheer, a leading Shiite member of Parliament. “Their days are numbered.”

....The Shiite-dominated government has never been pleased with the continuing American plan to finance and organize Sunni insurgents into militia guards, charging that they will stop fighting only as long as it serves their interests.

“These people are like cancer, and we must remove them,” said Brig. Gen. Nassir al-Hiti, commander of the Iraqi Army’s 5,000-strong Muthanna Brigade, which patrols west of Baghdad, said of the Awakening leaders on his list for arrest.

Maliki probably feels he can dump the Sunnis, or round up the Awakening groups and just murder them, once the American troops are tucked away out of the cities. I think this is a big mistake from Maliki, expecting that the Sunnis will just be steamrolled, but if there's unrest US troops will be available to step in and cut down the Sunnis for the Prime Minister. That's why this is staggered, but I think Maliki's making a very healthy assumption about this.

That leads us to the expected "conditions on the ground" caveat that will be put into this deal. It's clear that who is implementing this deal matters - whether the timeline is delayed, whether permanent bases are installed, etc.

This allows the Bush Administration (and, to a lesser extent, McCain) to argue that the surge worked, and now we're experiencing the benefits. But on the other hand, it's a real collapse of their strategy that timelines are poison and leaving equals losing. Here's Dan Froomkin:

In agreeing to pull U.S. combat troops out of Iraqi cities by June, and from the rest of the country by 2011, President Bush has apparently consented to precisely the kind of timetable that, when Democrats called for one, he dismissed as "setting a date for failure." Bush can call it an "aspirational goal" until he turns blue, but a timetable is exactly what it is, thank you very much.

Bush has repeatedly warned that politics and public opinion should have no role in the decision about when to leave Iraq, but apparently he just meant American politics and public opinion. A clear majority of Americans has favored a withdrawal timetable for several years now, putting anti-war Democrats in control of Congress in 2006.

Bush ignored them. But in the end, he bowed to the will of the Iraqis' elected representatives. After five and a half years of occupation, it was their turn to put a gun to Bush's head: The timetable was the price they demanded for agreeing to let American troops remain in the country beyond the expiration of a United Nations mandate in December.

This, of course, won't be Bush's problem, it'll be the problem of the next President. And that's the real question - how this impacts the Presidential race. Obama put out this statement:

I am glad that the Administration has finally shifted to accepting a timetable for the removal of our combat troops from Iraq. Success in Iraq depends on an Iraqi government that is reconciling its differences and taking responsibility for its future, and a timetable is the best way to press the Iraqis to do just that. I welcome the growing convergence around this pragmatic and responsible position.

"Senator McCain has stubbornly focused on maintaining an indefinite U.S presence in Iraq, but events have made his bluster and record increasingly out of touch with reality. While Senator McCain continues to offer unconditional military and economic support for Iraq, I strongly believe that we need to use our leverage with the Iraqi government to ensure a political settlement. In addition to a timetable, we should only train Iraqi Security Forces if Iraq's leaders reconcile their differences, and we must insist that Iraq invests its $79 billion surplus on rebuilding its own country. It's time to succeed in Iraq and to honor the sacrifice of our servicemen and women by leaving Iraq to a sovereign Iraqi government."

McCain is in danger of being marginalized, with the whole country, the Democrats, and BUSH on one side, and his small band of neocon brothers on the other. He'll argue that the surge worked and this shows why his judgment is superior, but it's a strategy focused on the past, and Obama has one focused on the future. I think Obama will benefit from this.

And in the end, this development will be more important than the number of houses McCain owns, though not now.