Iraq Asks U.S. Troops to Stay... a Little While Longer
By BrianFaughnan Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
So with Barack Obama considering the degree to which he's going to flip-flop on his plan for withdrawing from Iraq, an Iraqi government spokesman asks for U.S. troops to stay until 2011 -- or longer:
Ali al-Dabbagh said any timetable would depend on "conditions and the circumstances that the country would be undergoing." But he said a pullout within "three, four or five" years was possible.
"It can be 2011 or 2012," al-Dabbagh said. "We don't have a specific date in mind, but we need to agree on the principle of setting a deadline."
So according to al-Dabbagh, we should aim to be out of Iraq by 2013 (five years from now), but that our withdrawal must take into account 'conditions and circumstances' within the country. That hardly sounds like the position that Democrats have been pushing for years (although they're predictably quick to claim it is). As McQ points out, it's one thing to set a timetable for retreat; it's quite another to do so after success has been largely achieved.
Sounds to me like they're looking for an end-date for successful operations and full transition of the AO to the ISF before they'll commit to a timetable.
And any withdrawal will have a timetable. That's how you phase the operation. What you don't do, if you're in a conflict that can go either way, is announce it. That's what the Democrats insisted on.
If, however you're wrapping up a success, it really doesn't matter.
Here's the challenge for Obama: if on his tour of Iraq, he chooses to admit that the surge has been successful, isn't he almost forced to defer to the Iraqi government on the timetable for withdrawal? After all, the U.S. view is that American involvement in combat will soon come to an end. What justification will there then be for a precipitous withdrawal? Obama and McCain are both likely to wind up with largely the same position on Iraq.
The question is: given the confusion and inconsistency of Obama's current position(s) on Iraq, it will probably be a boost to him to have Iraq largely off the table.