More Good News From Iraq
Posted by: McQ
Prime Minister al Maliki:
"Today, we are looking at the necessity of terminating the foreign presence on Iraqi lands and restoring full sovereignty," Maliki told Arab ambassadors in blunt remarks during an official visit to Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates.
"One of the two basic topics is either to have a memorandum of understanding for the departure of forces or a memorandum of understanding to set a timetable for the presence of the forces, so that we know (their presence) will end in a specific time."
I have no problem with either and I say, the sooner the better.
AQI is all but finished, the Sunnis are invested in making the government work and al Sadr, from his front-line position in Iran, has much less influence than he formerly had due to Maliki's crackdown on Shi'ite militias. The ISF is very close to being a completely viable and self-supporting force, we just turned over Anbar province to the Iraqis (Anbar!)and it is indeed time to begin talking about withdrawal.
Reuters, of course, wants to make an issue of al Maliki's mention of a "timetable":
The Bush administration has always opposed such a move, saying it would give militant groups an advantage.
Uh, hello! It makes sense to oppose such talk when you have a viable enemy who is willing to go to ground to wait you out and then strike after you've left.
Reuters may want to review what I just said about how viable what is left of AQI and the Mahdi army are in that regard.
2 years ago, timetables for withdrawal were a bad idea because there were viable enemies still operating in Iraq.
Today? Not so much. Today we're talking about withdrawal timetables in the wake of victory. Then we were talking about timetables in the face of possible defeat. If you can't get you head around the difference, then I'd suggest you haven't much worthwhile to add to any discussion of the matter.
