Al-Maliki’s call for a withdrawal timetable

What happened

The pressure for the U.S. to set an end date for its occupation of Iraq grew this week, after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for the first time called on the U.S. to set a timetable for withdrawing troops. Addressing a conference of Arab diplomats last week, al-Maliki spoke of “the necessity of terminating the foreign presence on Iraqi lands and restoring full sovereignty.” The White House has long resisted the notion of a timetable, saying troops should leave only when the insurgency is defeated and the country is secure and politically stable. But administration officials this week said the White House is considering accelerating the withdrawal of forces from the current

150,000 level, beginning in September.

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Al-Maliki’s comments quickly became an issue in the presidential campaign. Democrat Barack Obama said al-Maliki’s statement “presents an enormous opportunity” to end the war. “Our single-minded and open-ended focus on Iraq is not a sound strategy for keeping America safe,” Obama said. As president, Obama said, he would pull combat units out of Iraq within 16 months and re-deploy at least 10,000 troops to battle al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Republican candidate John McCain said al-Maliki’s comments were made for internal political reasons. “The Iraqis have made it clear to me that [a date for withdrawal] is based on conditions on the ground,” McCain said. “I’ve always said we will come home with honor and with victory, and not through a set timetable.”

What the editorials said

“The U.S. goal in Iraq was always to build a sovereign nation,” said USA Today, “and Iraq is beginning to do what sovereign nations do.” Al-Maliki’s statement was a reminder that American politicians aren’t the only ones whose voices matter. A recent poll found that 72 percent of Iraqis oppose the U.S. occupation. It’s no surprise, then, that al-Maliki, with an eye on upcoming national elections, decided to speak up. “If the Iraqis decide it’s time for American forces to go home, the raging debate in Washington could become largely a moot point.”

Al-Maliki’s talk is mostly political posturing, said The Wall Street Journal. Under pressure from political rivals and Arab neighbors, “al-Maliki wants to show he’s nobody’s pawn, especially not America’s.” But his aides were quick to temper his remarks by noting that withdrawal must be conditioned on improved security, just as McCain and Bush have always said.

What the columnists said

Of course war supporters are now claiming that al-Maliki didn’t mean what he said, said Fred Kaplan in Slate.com. After all, for years, both Bush and McCain have said that if an elected Iraqi government asked us to leave, we would. “I don’t see how we could stay,” McCain said in 2004, “when our whole policy has been based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people.” Now McCain is painted into a corner—and Obama can claim that the Iraqi people and their prime minister agree with his views on Iraq, not the Republicans’.

Obama should stop patting himself on the back, said Steve Huntley in the Chicago Sun-Times. Let’s not forget that he “was pushing for a withdrawal when America was losing the war,” and predicted the Bush’s surge of 20,000 additional troops would backfire. Instead, it’s dramatically reduced violence and put Iraq on the road to success. If Obama had been president a year ago, he would have ordered “American soldiers to retreat from the battlefield,’’ and let al Qaida and insurgents win the war. Some president he’ll make.

Our current president has made his share of mistakes, said Daniel Levy and Michael Wahid Hanna in The Boston Globe, but in refusing to set a timetable, Bush may have inadvertently done the right thing. Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds and the factions within these sects are now uniting around their opposition to an open-ended U.S. occupation. Al-Maliki’s call for a clear end date may now serve as “a point of departure for a much-needed dialogue about long-term power-sharing in Iraq.”

What next?

Obama is traveling to the Middle East next week, where he will meet with politicians and military commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan. “That could have a powerful influence on how U.S. voters judge his ability to act as the nation’s commander in chief,” said Peter Grier in The Christian Science Monitor. Will he look strong and presidential, or like “an inexperienced, provincial politician on a learning tour?”