Obama needs to jump right on this story and get a comment out today, BEFORE Bush freaks out and tries to "walk this back" just like he did Al Maliki's previous statement:
The AP is reporting today: Iraq's al-Maliki demands 'specific deadline' for all US troops to leave
This was previously mentioned in a diary, but here's the relevant text:
Iraq demands deadline for pullout of all US troops
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD (AP) -- Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Monday no security agreement with the United States could be reached unless it included a "specific deadline" for the withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq.
The important point here is that the AP is widely distributed in hundreds of U.S. newspapers all across the country. Just googling this story I found it immediately in the Columbus Dispatch and Newsday.com. Most newspapers today are laying off reporters right and left, so they put stories from the AP and UPI directly into their papers, often word for word without editing at all. That's been the case here. Every story is identical. This is going national and it's a crisis for McCain. McCain was already under pressure because Bush undercut him by agreeing to "time-horizons" which looks suspiciously like "timetables" that McCain has rejected and attacked Obama for using.
Now the Iraqis AGAIN are decisively undercutting the Bush/McCain argument for staying in Iraq.
Last week, U.S. and Iraqi officials said the two sides had agreed tentatively to a schedule which included a broad pullout of combat forces by the end of 2011 with a residual U.S. force remaining behind to continue training and advising the Iraqi security forces."
That's the John McCain "victory position." Everybody stops fighting, the U.S. withdraws combat forces (but no "timetable") and "residual" forces (we're not saying how many) remain permanently in Iraq for "100 years." I.e. a permanent occupation, only the Iraqis learn to love us for it. VICTORY! But Maliki is rejecting it (despite his being personally dependent on the presence of U.S. forces) because NO domestic Iraqi support exists for accepting a permanent U.S. occupation. He simply can't accept it and stay in power. So he's forced to publicly reject it.
"But al-Maliki's remarks Monday suggested that the Iraqi government is still not satisfied with that arrangement. An aide to the prime minister said Monday that Iraq remained adamant that the last American soldier must leave Iraq by the end of 2011 - regardless of conditions at the time. . . ."
That's a hard and fast demand by the Iraqi government for a fixed timetable for withdrawal. Period. I.e. Iraq's Prime Minister has once again endorsed the Obama position and flatly rejected the Bush/McCain position on Iraq.
"President Bush has long resisted a timetable for pulling out troops from Iraq, even under heavy pressure from a nation distressed by American deaths and discouraged by the length of the war that began in 2003.
"There can be no treaty or agreement except on the basis of Iraq's full sovereignty," al-Maliki told a gathering of tribal sheiks. He said such an agreement must be based on the principle that "no foreign soldier remains in Iraq after a specific deadline, not an open time frame."
Good luck trying to spin THAT you "victory" wing-nuts! The Iraqi government is DEMANDING TOTAL WITHDRAWAL by 2011 REGARDLESS OF CONDITIONS ON THE GROUND AT THE TIME! Period.
Of course, the right will now be in full "attack Maliki" mode, ignoring the fact that he was chosen because he was supposed to be subservient to American pressure. He's proving to be embarrassingly an Iraqi nationalist.