And a Single Timeline Shall Rule Them All

Filed in National by on July 19, 2008

Well, maybe not, but amongst the major shifts on BushCo policy this week, this administration has finally agreed to a timeline for withdrawal. Of course, they don’t want this new effort actually branded as a timeline — they call ita general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals. While the announcement of the agreement is framed as an exercise in transferring increasing control to the Iraqis, this represents this administration finally hearing what the Iraqi government (and serious voices here too) has been telling us for awhile now — that our presence is now unwelcome and seen as an impediment to long-term stabilization. So now an administration who has been lashing out at everyone who has been discussing a timeline for withdrawal (tell them when we’ll stand down so they can be ready to stand up) has finally succumbed to the real facts on the ground.

And before Bush/McCain declare victory over a strategy that they both fought tooth and nail to resist, note that even the Iraqi PM supports the Obama plan for withdrawal:

In an interview with Der Spiegel released on Saturday, Maliki said he wanted U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible.

“U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.”

Given that this is still BushCo still in charge, there is alot that they can screw up over this in the next several months, but certainly it is gratifying that they now feel the 11th hour need to try to co-opt the Obama foreign policy approach (there is an American Ambassdor sitting in on the Iranian 6 party talks this weekend too!), finally act like grownups and actually try to accomplish some statesmanship in the Middle East.

UPDATE: So I guess that the WH mistakenly blasts out to its reporter email list the al-Mailki agreement with Obama’s timeline. The first McCain reaction? “We’re Fucked”. Taking bets on whether al-Maliki appears tomorrow (sans an arm) to clumsily backtrack on this.

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"You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas." -Shirley Chisholm

Comments (6)

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  1. Pandora says:

    I’m so confused, but I’m beginning to think that’s the Republican strategy. Timeline/No timeline, Immigration/No immigration, Bush tax cut good/ Bush tax cut bad, Economy good/economy bad.

    Maybe they feel taking both sides of a position is their only shot of winning.

  2. Disbelief says:

    OK, cassandra; how many times have you read LOR? Come on; don’t be shy.

  3. Truth Teller says:

    I believe that Bush and Company have taken a hard look at McCain and decided that he would make a terrible commander in chief. And so the now agree with a time line which undercuts McCain’s position and helps Obama also Bush now willing to talk to Iran another blow to McCain.Poor John he just can’t seem to get anything right.

  4. cassandra_m says:

    Just updated this with some McCain group strategist reaction to al-Maliki’s comment. It is going to be tough to to walk this back and it is going to be amusing to watch them (and the press) try. But if it gains any traction at all it takes McCain’s reason to be in this thing away from him.

    And, Dis, I read LOTR many times back in the day, but have never seen the movies. I just can’t imagine anything on the big screen that could be better than the Tolkien-spun movie in my head.

  5. Disbelief says:

    Actually, the latest film interpretation is pretty good. The major defect is that they cut the entire Tom Bombadil vignette totally (no, I’m not a nerd who has read the trilogy annually every year since 14 years old and studied biographies about Tolkein and C.S. Lewis and done papers comparing the Out of The Silent Planet trilogy with LOTR).

  6. um, yeah, you can tell I read other posts…sorry