"We have a text," Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said after a day-long visit Thursday by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
This is either the culmination of an unsustainable strategy, a last ditch attempt to secure a legacy or a desperate move to make McCain more electable.
I don't care which it is.
The Washington Post is reporting that the Bush Administration has finally agreed to a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.
Negotiators agreed several weeks ago to reduce the presence of all U.S. forces in Iraqi cities, among the most dangerous places soldiers operate, by the end of next year. That process would entail consolidating U.S. troops now deployed in small neighborhood posts into larger bases outside city centers, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials involved in the talks.
This is EXACTLY what Obama, Hillary, Wesley Clark, Joe Biden and other Democrats and military experts have been arguing for YEARS: that keeping a smaller number of troops away from urban centers, ready to strike down any terrorist activity if it threatened to boil over, made a whole helluva lot more sense than driving up and down Main Street, waiting for someone to shoot at you so you can shoot back.
"They have both agreed to 2011," Mohammed al-Haj Hamoud, Iraq's chief negotiator, said in a telephone interview. "If the Iraqi government at that time decides it is necessary to keep the American forces longer, they can do so."
Bush and company finally realized that Iraq wasn't going to roll over and do what we wanted it to. Say what you will about Maliki, it is clear that he is not an American puppet - he was more than willing to let negotiations on withdrawal lag, not because he didn't mind the American troop's presence, but because he knew that the US had no legal basis for continuing the occupation absent a bilateral agreement. Then, he even got the point across that the legislation would never ever pass the Iraqi Parliament with provisions in it that immunized foreign security contractors like Blackwater - and got the demand struck from the accord.
This is not set in stone yet - the Parliament will begin reviewing the agreement on September 9, when back from summer recess (because, as you know, it's way too hot in Baghdad in August to legislate, but not too hot for our soldiers to risk their lives). They may actually demand a shorter timetable due to widespread public opinion. And finally, it does not mean The Surge Worked(tm), the invasion was not the largest foreign policy blunder in American history - and it does not absolve John McCain of his responsibility for supporting this entire fiasco from the start.
But I don't care. Whatever gets 'em home, and whoever gets the credit, let's do it. Let's bring 'em home.