Troop withdrawal plan hits a glitch

Negotiations on the future U.S. military presence in Iraq stalled this week when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki insisted on a firm deadline for an American pullout. Last week, Iraq and the U.S. appeared to have reached a deal that would remove U.S. troops from Iraqi cities by mid-2009 and set an “aspirational” goal of late 2011 for the withdrawal of remaining U.S. forces. But al-Maliki this week demanded that foreign forces leave by “a specific date” in 2011. The White House has insisted that the timing of any troop pullouts be determined by “conditions on the ground,” not the calendar.

In a sign of continuing sectarian tensions, al-Maliki announced that 70,000 Sunni security volunteers must soon surrender their weapons. After making an alliance with U.S. troops, the volunteers of the Sunni “Awakening’’ movement have been instrumental in routing al Qaida in Iraq. But in recent weeks, Iraqi police have arrested several Awakening leaders, and seized the weapons of scores of the volunteers. “We adhere to a policy that there are no arms but the arms of the government,” al-Maliki said.

Don’t be fooled by al-Maliki’s “tough stand” on the withdrawal date, said Robert Dreyfuss in TheNation.com. It’s “political showmanship designed to play to a nationalist Iraqi public that is tired of the U.S. occupation.” The 2011 date will be flexible.

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If the troop surge hadn’t been so successful, said Noemie Emery in The Weekly Standard, there would be no negotiations over a withdrawal date. Violence is way down, and “the country portrayed for the last four years by the press and the Democrats as Vietnam-in-the-Desert is doing much better.” That is sweet vindication for President Bush—and for John McCain, too.

Iraq is still a long way from peace, said Shawn Brimley and Colin Kahl in the Los Angeles Times. Al-Maliki, a Shiite, apparently has no intention of ushering in a new era of cooperation with the minority Sunnis—and, in fact, wants to dominate them. “It is obvious where this road might end.” Friction between Sunnis and Shiites could easily flare into violence and civil war, “sweeping away all that has been achieved with great cost and sacrifice.”