This Is Not News

In the hub-bub over Iraqi government leaders backing Barack Obama’s general proposal for a 16-month timeline to withdraw American combat troops, John McCain has been making the argument that even if, after all “translation”-related confusion has been cleared up, the Iraqis do agree with Obama, Obama deserves no credit for this because he opposed the surge plan a year ago. Whether you agree with this or not, it does raise the point that the justifications for the timeline seem to be shifting a little bit in the media coverage. When Obama began proposing a 16-month withdrawal, he argued that it was necessary to give the various Iraqi factions time to get their act together – that Iraq would never completely stand on its own until it had to. Now the argument seems to be coming across more as “things have calmed down, they don’t need us, let’s go.” I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t take just about any justification for getting out of Iraq right now, but I have a gut feeling that the original justification is going to turn out to be a lot more valid than the new one. There are still a lot of competing power centers in Iraq, and I am certainly not an expert on how well the government is currently getting along with the Sadrist militias or what kind of autonomy the Kurds will demand or so on. But I can’t help feeling that we’re in a calm-before-the-storm period, that the calm has something to do with a belief that American forces will leave relatively soon, and that it won’t stick around indefinitely if that belief is lost.