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.