This Blackmail Isn't Really Blackmail

Potential peace talks with Afghanistan? Strategic arms reduction deals with Russia? Is the Bush Administration going all soft on me at the end of their reign? Can't they do something like blackmail a foreign government?

Oh, right.

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military has warned Iraq that it will shut down military operations and other vital services throughout the country on Jan. 1 if the Iraqi government doesn't agree to a new agreement on the status of U.S. forces or a renewed United Nations mandate for the American mission in Iraq.

Many Iraqi politicians view the move as akin to political blackmail, a top Iraqi official told McClatchy Sunday.

In addition to halting all military actions, U.S. forces would cease activities that support Iraq's economy, educational sector and other areas _ "everything" _ said Tariq al Hashimi, the country's Sunni Muslim vice president. "I didn't know the Americans are rendering such wide-scale services."

Hashimi said that Army Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, listed "tens" of areas of potential cutoffs in a three-page letter, and he said the implied threat caught Iraqi leaders by surprise.

"It was really shocking for us," he said. "Many people are looking to this attitude as a matter of blackmailing."

For a second there, I thought Bush had been replaced by Eisenhower!

This is kind of a horrible thing to do, but isn't this what the Iraqi people are ASKING for? They want national sovereignty and an end to the occupation. The fact that the political leadership is calling this blackmail is a tell that they don't want the Americans to actually leave, or at least that they want continued help in reconstruction and social services. I don't think such a free lunch is possible anymore. The leadership needs to keep listening to their people. They want the Americans out and this is the consequence.

As for the Afghan talks, one former Taliban commander throws cold water on a possible Al Qaeda-Taliban split, but Spencer Ackerman is hopeful:

But Waheed Muzhda, a senior Taliban official when the movement was in power who is now a researcher in Kabul, said Westerners would be disappointed if they sought to drive a wedge between the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

“You cannot separate the two,” he said. “The Taliban didn’t give up Osama bin Laden, under the greatest possible pressure. Why would they break from Al Qaeda now?”

One answer could be because the Afghan insurgency can be cleaved apart through methodical applications of peaceful inducement, population security and military pressure — leaving at least some Taliban factions to calculate that it’s better to enjoy the blessings of power in Kabul than to be hunted from Kandahar to Quetta.

But the point is a rather salient one: if the Taliban won’t break with Al Qaeda, then there’s not really anything to negotiate. It would be irresponsible to broker the return to power of an Al Qaeda-aligned political movement.

You don't need the WHOLE Taliban to sign off, just enough to broadcast the schism.