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One Giant Step Closer to U.S. Withdrawal from Iraq

By Matt Zeitlin - Aug 21st, 2008 at 11:31 am

So finally, bigger news than the age of China’s Olympic gymnasts or Evan Bayh’s wife getting her hair done. The Wall Street Journal reports that the US has signed a commitment to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq by 2011:

BAGHDAD — U.S. and Iraqi negotiators reached agreement on a security deal that calls for American military forces to leave Iraq’s cities by next summer as a prelude to a full withdrawal from the country, according to senior American officials.

The draft agreement sets 2011 as the date by which all remaining U.S. troops will leave Iraq, according to Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammed al-Haj Humood and other people familiar with the matter.

Teams of American and Iraqi negotiators spent months haggling over the deal, which represents a remarkable turnaround from just a few months ago, when talk of timetables and deadlines was routinely dismissed by the Bush administration and other Republicans in Washington.

Senior officials in Washington said the talks have concluded. The deal will be presented to the Bush administration and the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for formal approval or rejection.

“The talking is done,” one U.S. official said late Wednesday night. “Now the decision makers choose whether to give it a thumbs up or a thumbs down.”

Now, it’s by no means certain that this deal will be accepted by the Iraqi government, which needs to seek approval from the parliament. But the fact is that Nouri al-Maliki’s insistence on some sort of timetable for withdrawal convinced American negotiators that an indefinite presence in Iraq wasn’t viable or acceptable. The Iraqi people, it seems, have won.

The other big news is that the Bush administration “dropped its insistence that American contractors remain immune from Iraqi law.” Not surprisingly, unaccountable foreign contractors running around with no legal regime to guide their behavior were unpopular among Iraqis.

All in all, this is huge news that will surely shake up American and Iraqi politics for weeks and months to come, especially the presidential race. John McCain, who after Maliki endorsed Barack Obama’s plan insisted that Maliki didn’t actually support a withdrawal, will be forced to awkwardly explain himself. Obama, on the other hand, appears to have been totally vindicated, with something approximating his withdrawal plan becoming US and Iraqi policy.

Kevin Drum has more speculation on how this will play out politically.

Tags: foreign policy, Iraq war, national security