IRAQ

Demanding Withdrawal

Earlier this month, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki raised the prospect of “setting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops as part of negotiations over a new security agreement with Washington.” “Today, we are looking at the necessity of terminating the foreign presence on Iraqi lands and restoring full sovereignty,” Maliki told Arab ambassadors in Abu Dhabi. However, the Bush administration rejected Maliki’s demands. A State Department spokesman said that any U.S. withdrawal would be “conditions based.” “Timelines tend to be artificial in nature,” a Pentagon spokesperson added. But perhaps remembering his previous stance that if the Iraqis “were to say, ‘leave,’ we’ll leave,” President Bush agreed last week to a “general time horizon” for withdrawal, adding a caveat that the timeframe being discussed would not be “arbitrary.” Maliki contniues to keep up the pressure. When asked this weekend by Der Spiegel when he thinks U.S. troops should leave Iraq, Maliki replied, “as soon as possible.” Then Maliki expressed support for Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) plan to exit Iraq: ”Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.” Moreover, Maliki specifically rejected the Bush administration’s argument against timetables. “The Americans have found it difficult to agree on a concrete timetable for the exit because it seems like an admission of defeat to them,” Maliki told Der Spiegel. “But it isn’t.”

MUST BE A TRANSCRIPTION ERROR: Soon after Maliki said last month that the United States should set a timetable for withdrawal, the administration suggested that Maliki’s remarks were the result of a transcription error, a point that multiple press accounts — as well as Maliki’s office — had debunked. In similar fashion, this weekend, the White House  rushed to discredit Maliki’s new call for withdrawal. On Sunday, an Iraqi government spokesman called Maliki’s remarks “misunderstood and mistranslated” but offered no specifics. In fact, the statement was released by the U.S. military and came only after “officials at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad contacted Maliki’s office to express concern and seek clarification on the remarks, according to White House spokesman Scott Stanzel.” But the so-called clarification belies the reality: not only did Der Spiegel stand by its version of the conversation with Maliki, but “the interpreter for the interview works for Mr. Maliki’s office, not the magazine.” Moreover, Der Spiegel provided the New York Times with an audio recording of the Maliki interview. The Times concluded that Maliki “seemed to state a clear affinity” for the 16-month withdrawal plan.

‘LET’S SQUEEZE THEM’: The Associated Press’s Baghdad bureau reported yesterday that Maliki’s embrace of a 16-month timetable is part of his “strategy to play U.S. politics for the best deal possible over America’s military mission” in Iraq. The AP reported that “the goal is not necessarily to push out the Americans quickly, but instead give Iraqis a major voice in how long U.S. troops stay and what they will do while still there” and to boost Maliki’s “nationalist credentials.” According to “senior Iraqi officials,” Maliki “sensed desperation by the Americans to wrap up a [security] deal quickly before the presidential campaign was in full swing.” “Let’s squeeze them,” Maliki told his advisers. “The squeeze came July 7, when Maliki announced in Abu Dhabi that Iraq wanted the base deal to include some kind of timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops.” “This isn’t so much Maliki speaking as [it is] Maliki playing to restive Iraqi public opinion,” Talking Points Memo editor Josh Marshall observed regarding the AP report. Marshall added that “it is a distinction without a difference. If an Iraqi leader must oppose a continuing US military presence in order to stay in power, then clearly the days of the US military presence in Iraq are numbered.”

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