The Logic of a Timetable

Being an American who primarily comments on US politics and public policy I have, over the years, primarily concentrated on the logic for the United States of America to setting a timeline for withdrawal of our forces from Iraq. But with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki talking up the timetable option it's worth considering that it has a solid logic from an Iraqi point of view.

The Iraqi government, it seems clear, would like some continued support from US combat forces. And the United States, for good reason, doesn't want its forces running around Iraq engaged in combat while being subject to Iraqi law rather than the Uniform Code of Military Justice. At the same time, the Iraqi government wants to be the government of a real sovereign country which is incompatible with a foreign army running around the country engaged in active combat and not subject to Iraqi law. One easy way to thread the needle of continued US combat engagement in Iraq while maintaining a meaningful sense of Iraqi sovereignty is to make the US presence temporary in a definitive way. Which is to say -- setting a timetable for withdrawal. That should buy the United States an added degree of public support within which to conduct some additional operations and leave the best possible situation behind.

Comments

Of course Maliki may be making these noises and perhaps can develop a fig leaf for the purposes of electoral politics in Iraq's upcoming elections.

When, in reality, Iraqi pols are glad to keep US money flowing into their bank accounts and US personnel keeping them alive while they get rich.

It may be a shell game ... and not one just for Shell oil.

Posted by riffle | July 8, 2008 6:08 PM

I was hoping that you would comment on the Iraqi government's call for a time table. (According to NPR, they want three years -- the Bush administration wants seven.)

It seems to me that the correct answer is: zero months, as in leave as quickly as is logistically possible. By (understandably) wanting a time table for the exit of US forces, the Iraqi government has (again, rightly) cut the legs from underneath any rationale for our continued presence in the country. The Bush/McCain argument is that we have to stay to keep Iraq from descending into chaos. But if the Iraqis themselves publicly say "we don't need you" then insisting on staying looks even more like a hostile occupation.

Of course, that's what it has been from the start but there was always a "just cause" patina to our presence. Not anymore.

Posted by Roberto | July 8, 2008 6:12 PM

It think Iraq has already received this "control" option from Iran.

That is to say that Iraq only needs a Iran's presence temporary in a definitive way

Remember please that the Saudis decided that we could move our military bases from Saudi Arabia to Iraq because this war in Iraq was an opportune time for the Saudis to say “could you please get out now”, move your base over to Iraq.

Now Iran is saying that Iraq doesn't need the US either. Really, it's why Bush hates them Iranians so much, labels them terrorist, threatens them all the time.

Posted by Me-again | July 8, 2008 6:15 PM

McCain has a timetable. It's 100 years.

Posted by LFC | July 8, 2008 6:26 PM

According to NPR, they want three years

Wow, I bet Obama won't have a problem accommodating that with a new revising of his Iraq strategy. Obama went from agent of change to regular politician at the first blush of securing the nomination.

Poor Hillary, if only she could have made the voters see that Obama was exactly the same kind of DLC patriot that she is.

Posted by Me_again | July 8, 2008 6:26 PM

And the United States, for good reason, doesn't want its forces running around Iraq engaged in combat while being simultaneously subject to Iraqi law and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Fixed that for you. Servicemembers are subject to the UCMJ at all times. That's why it's called the UNIFORM Code of Military Justice, it applies uniformly in all jurisdictions. That's the benefit of having a UCMJ.

Posted by guineapigfury | July 8, 2008 6:29 PM

The Iraqis have become very sophisticated in the use of leaks. Also we've got sources of journalism inside the Iraqi gov't. Both are good things.

I suggest that other than a time-table for troop withdrawal (with the Iraqis and Bushies both wanting to avoid total U.S. troop withdrawal) there is another part of this to watch: control of air space. It would be part of SOFA that the Iranians have a lot of interest in. Possibly more than the Iraqis. Therefore, part of the diplomacy between Baghdad and Tehran.

Posted by JohnMcC | July 8, 2008 6:32 PM

Servicemembers are subject to the UCMJ at all times. That's why it's called the UNIFORM Code of Military Justice, it applies uniformly in all jurisdictions.

But, of course, the Bush administration has specifically exempted contractors from it.

Wow, I bet Obama won't have a problem accommodating that with a new revising of his Iraq strategy.

And I bet McCain won't. Just like Bush, he wants those 58 bases and 100 years. The difference between Obama and McCain couldn't be more stark.

If you want to have a good chance of getting out of Iraq in the next presidential term, vote Obama. If you just want to wait for the next excuse as to why we need well over 100,000 troops left in Iraq for the foreseeable future and no plan for getting them out, McCain's your boy.

Posted by LFC | July 8, 2008 6:42 PM

The answer to the problem you set up here is actually a status of forces agreement, in its traditional sense.

The fact that the traditional vehicle for resolving these sorts of issues is no longer even considered is a failure of the Bush administration's policy. In trying to use this agreement to secure indefinite rights to occupation, they've actually tied the Iraqis' hands and made a timetable for withdrawal MORE, not less, likely.

Posted by Jimmy | July 8, 2008 6:49 PM

The answer to the problem you set up here is actually a status of forces agreement, in its traditional sense.

The fact that the traditional vehicle for resolving these sorts of issues is no longer even considered is a failure of the Bush administration's policy. In trying to use this agreement to secure indefinite rights to occupation, they've actually tied the Iraqis' hands and made a timetable for withdrawal MORE, not less, likely.

Posted by Jimmy | July 8, 2008 6:50 PM

The answer to the problem you set up here is actually a status of forces agreement, in its traditional sense.

Quoting NPR again, the Iraqis aren't even talking about a "status of forces" agreement anymore. They want a less-formal memorandum of understanding. Also, they are well aware that the Bush administration is on its way out and are prepared to see if they can get a better deal from its successor.

Posted by Roberto | July 8, 2008 7:02 PM

Look I'm not going to say McCain is lying, I am going to say that there will be no 100 year occupation. This is not a defeated Germany or Japan, they won't go along with what we say. Nor do they have to. Does anyone here really believe that McCain won't be pulling troops out? Hell Bush may pull troops out at the end of the year just because Iraq is peaceful and the fact that NATO doesn't have as many troops in Afghanistan but they actually lost more than Iraq last month. Folks the dirty secret is unless Iraq reverts to 06 form or we want to be perceived as a hostile power in Iraq by Iraqis, we will not be allowed to have a presence there past the next president.

Posted by ben | July 8, 2008 7:44 PM

Look I'm not going to say McCain is lying, I am going to say that there will be no 100 year occupation. This is not a defeated Germany or Japan, they won't go along with what we say. Nor do they have to. Does anyone here really believe that McCain won't be pulling troops out? Hell Bush may pull troops out at the end of the year just because Iraq is peaceful and the fact that NATO doesn't have as many troops in Afghanistan but they actually lost more than Iraq last month. Folks the dirty secret is unless Iraq reverts to 06 form or we want to be perceived as a hostile power in Iraq by Iraqis, we will not be allowed to have a presence there past the next president.

Posted by ben | July 8, 2008 7:56 PM

Douthat - as a result it's focused on "staying the course" rather than "who do you trust?," which is the question McCain will win the election on if he manages to win it.

I doubt Iraq will be anywhere near as important as the economy, but with America fed up with Congress and lawyers keeping America in a 30-year gridlock on repairing medicare, repairing our bad infrastructure, failing air transport, failing to get any energy policy ....you won't believe how popular it is to hear soldiers owning Iraq and despite being the ones suffering - committed to stepping up and finishing a job that a mild Dem Elitist like Obama thinks we should just quit, like every American should be free to quit a job that they start but find "inconvenient" or the last 10% to finish is unacceptably tougher than the 1st part of the surgery, plumbing installation, raising a kid from 0 to 18 years where 90% went easy.

"Let us finish the job, Sen McCain. Don't make us 4th ID walk away from the hard work and sacrifice nearing the finish. We don't want to run."

And what really should be discussed is Obama's claim to have near-Godlike judgement on a range of domestic, economic, and security topics and his facile approach of just throwing aside people close to him that are suddenly inconvenient and do 180 on policies that his mythmakers say was legendary judgement as a minor state legislator that don't look so well now.

matt - 'Finish the job' sounds great, but is semantically very close to 'bring the troops home.'

Actually, matt, they are semantic polar opposites in context.
One is 'We wish to finish the job before we stop', the other is "Others wish to drag us away from a hard job we sacrificed much for against our will just as we see success looming."

This goes with other areas that would be natural in any politician other than some little obscure Daley Machine flunky running for President - they build up a record in public veiw and cast defining, not "present!" votes while avoiding a good share of his Senate ones.
We see Obamessiahs touted judgment slowly getting punctured and deflating as he is forced to take stands and admit some of his positions were pretty naive, his judgment in selection of a circle of friends and associates rather odorific by comparison to other candidates.

Now he is trying to "refine" some of the few things he took a position on with his scanty record as too left-leaning for Primetime.

Nothing says his geostrategic position is vacuous more than his insistance that the placement of US forces, then their holding and influencing the very center of gravity of oil and the Islamic world, beating AQ who also recognized Iraq as the Central battlefield - be abandoned. So he can instead deploy back to a relatively resourceless and fight 20 million savage tribesmen in superb defensive positions so he can deal with the "real threat - 6 AQ guys hiding in fear of their lives.

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James - And going on about the surge cannot draw attention to one of Obamas killer advantages; he was against the war from the start.

Either the public believes that Obama was a gifted military thinker who dissected the intelligence and found it wrong or you believe that Obama addressed his anti-war speech to old SDS memmbers and hard Lefties gathered because he was also a sympatico Lefty that opposed the war not from brains, but because he was a leftist Elite ideologue.
Same speech Obama gave was given by Vladimir Putin, Rosie O'Donnell, Fidel Castro, "Red Ken" Livingston, Hugo Chavez, and every gray-haired hippie riff-raff who failed to grow into adulthood in the last 40 years.

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Remember, this is the great strategic thinker when he was forced to depart from the Teleprompter and the soaring speeches Team Axelrod wrote for him that said in debate he would attack AQ and have our troops "find bin Laden" in Pakistan without Pakistan's permission to enter sovereign territory while intensifying the fight in Afghanistan. Without ever considering that doing so would subsequently cut off 90% of the Afghan War effort supplies which must go through Pakistan, even start a war with a country that has a large professional military and WMD.
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And perhaps McCain needs a bit of mocking of Obama's cocky, inflated ego.
"Unlike FDR, JFK, Lincoln, or Reagan the Obamessiah is apparantly just too much more awesome and important to allow
his greatness to be confined by one of the largest Convention Halls in the Nation. No, only a huge outdoor stadium like Mile High Stadium allows his head the room it needs to swell."
"My opponent has already forecast that future generations will mark the moment of his beating a woman candidate as the moment when the sick began to be cured, the oceans rise slowed, and the Earth began to heal. In my case, I worry about if future generations will think most of the issues I bucked my own Party and was punished for were the right thing to do, and the inevitable comparisons between Jimmy Carter and myself as the only two Naval Academy graduates to run for President. I worry that future generations will know I was short..though I sailed over more ocean than Obamessiah will ever calm with a wave of his hand."

Posted by chris ford | July 8, 2008 8:27 PM

I've been a wonk type for a long time and I never thought I would say anything this cynical. But, after the last 7 years it must be asked...

Is the fix in? Are the White House and Maliki's govt cooking up some sort of highly contingent timetable-ish "plan" to withdraw most US forces by some imaginary date in a McCain first term, JUST to get McCain off the hook of Iraq for the remainder of the campaign?

You know the media would eat it all up.

Posted by David Wonk | July 8, 2008 8:32 PM

Are the White House and Maliki's govt cooking up some sort of highly contingent timetable-ish "plan" to withdraw most US forces by some imaginary date in a McCain first term, JUST to get McCain off the hook of Iraq for the remainder of the campaign?

I dunno, but I did hear today that Ali Sistani said "no deal" on the status of forces agreement and if that's true it doesn't matter much what Bush or Maliki want at all. The green zone goes up in flames and we get literaly forced out in a running withdrawl.

Posted by Ed Marshall | July 8, 2008 8:50 PM

Hmm. What Maliki wants...........what Bush wants.............I wonder what the Iraqi people want?

Posted by Steve S. | July 8, 2008 9:13 PM

So at what point do Turkey, Jordan ,and Saudi Arabia say ok fine to Shia Iraq, as a sovereign nation, buying tanks, fighter-bombers, and cruise missles of their very own? Or the Kurds and Anbar Sunnis, for that matter?

Posted by bob mcmanus | July 8, 2008 9:41 PM

I wholeheartedly endorse Chris Ford's fantasy that John McCain will choose to give speeches written by Chris Ford. I will gladly pay to have the speeches Fed-Ex'd to McCain if it will help this come true.

Posted by El Cid | July 8, 2008 9:44 PM

Good one, El Cid.

Once again, the point that Matt should be emphasizing here is that it doesn't matter what Bush, Cheney, Obama or McCain think. The Iraqis - with some help from the Iranians - will be deciding what goes down in Iraq. This was true from day one after the invasion and continues to be true today.

And what is increasingly looking like the most probable outcome is that the nationalists - meaning the moderate Sunnis and the Shia Sadrists - are going to be taking power next year. Maliki will either join them on Iranian orders or be swept aside.

After that, there definitely will be a timetable for US withdrawal in no uncertain terms. And if the US - under McCain or Obama - does not adhere to that timetable, the US will discover a united Shia/Sunni insurgency that will guarantee a US withdrawal.

If Bush attacks Iran before leaving office, OTOH, the US will be forced out of Iraq within three months at great cost to men and material.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 8, 2008 10:27 PM

the US will be forced out of Iraq within three months at great cost to men and material.

I think you overestimate the American military and underestimate the Iraqis. I have some fairly good sources that say the American military will not take those losses in withdrawal. In forced retreat under fire, they will care little for Iraqi civilians or collateral damage.

Nobody wants this to happen, so it won't.

Posted by bob mcmanus | July 9, 2008 1:09 AM

Jesus, RSH, I thought you were a smart tough guy.
Gilliard used to spout this shit. Let me put it bluntly.

If 5 million Iraqis attacked the last two brigades in the Green Zone such that those troops were in danger, 5 million Iraqis would die. If American political leadership tried to get in the way and abandon those troops, you would probably see a mutiny.

Sistani & the Iraqis understand this, which is part of the reason we are still in Iraq. Obama understands this, which is why he says he will take the advice of his commanders.

This ain't gonna be Dunkirk, Stalingrad, or Dienbienphu. We have air supremacy.

Posted by bob mcmanus | July 9, 2008 1:40 AM

I think people underestimate the extent to which various Iraqi factions find utility in some kind of American presence. The only real question is "what kind?". Everyone wants something different from what we have today, with our best combat troops playing a role that Iraqi police forces should be playing, but the question of an end-point seems to me highly unlikely to be a total withdrawal of US troops.

Most Iraqis say they want us to leave, but they nearly all seem to attach some sort of "right after..." to it. Some see us as a club with which to beat their enemies; others as protection from theirs; still others as the kind of guarantee the big multinational oil companies require before they will invest the expertise and billions of dollars required to bring Iraq's oil production up to its potential.

The war in Iraq has turbocharged the transformation of our forces already underway in Clinton's term of office, and further pushed by Rumsfeld. Part of this transformation has been the move from the huge "little Americas" bases of the Cold War--Burger Kings, spouses, kids, day-care centers, dogs, churches--to the kind of gas-and-go "lily pad" bases that have been described as an austere "global coaling-station network". Given the geography, it's possible for us to maintain a quite effective force in Iraq with little or no contact between it and rank-and-file Iraqis. There are too many vested interests on all sides of this equation to allow a simple pullout.

Posted by robert powell | July 9, 2008 4:26 AM

McManus, I quote you what a British office in Basra said at one point in the last five years: "If 100,000 people come marching down the street, we will leave." Of course, that's the British, who try to be civilized under the US which doesn't mind killing civilians at any time.

Ayatollah Sistani can put 100,000 people on the street in an hour. Sadr can put quite a few on the street himself.

Yes, a "Dunkirk" is indeed possible.

Air supremacy means squat when the mob is coming in over the barriers.

Besides, I don't expect it to go that way. How it will go is the same sort of tactics the insurgency has been using for the last five years - just amped up by a factor of ten or so, if the Shia join in.

The US isn't going to have any more targets than they do now - just more IEDs and more snipers and more ambushes. Not to mention that if you cut the supply lines from Kuwait - which would be easy for the Shia in southern Iraq with some covert Iranian support, the US troops will be out of food, water, fuel and bullets within thirty days. Hard to massacre people when you can't fly your planes, except the ones from Kuwait and the aircraft carriers. Every plane and chopper in Iraq will be grounded.

In short, you're full of it.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 9, 2008 4:30 AM

The mob will have to be extremely well armed 30 days of fire will do quite a bit of damage. Iraqis will be more than happy to escort us to Kuwait. Then they'll bar the door and shut the blinds. Why is it so hard for people to get: A win or lose outcome is less likely then a murky one. We're not going to have Iraq waiving flags saying "thanks for coming", have a little imagination. Think of an outcome where we leave in 6 years, Iraq pulls closer to its natural Iranian ally, not against the US but against Saudi Arabia and Israel. Or an Iraq that maintains a very federalist government that has little actual power in its local proivinces, Iraq without main power, Iraq surges to the forefront of oil production reaping a sizeable reward, or whatever. I don't pretend to know the ending of ths particular set of time, nor should andyone else. I do know the outcome is not determined. I know that it can go a bunch of ways, and we need to be able to deal with that eventuality without clinging to some preconceived notion of how things should be.

Posted by ben | July 9, 2008 6:53 AM

A few things haven't been mentioned.

1. The anti-government forces in Iraq are in a downward spiral of defeat and defection. The Sunni tribes have largely changed sides, Al Qaeda in Iraq has been driven out of a lot of places and lost a lot of jihadists, and Sadr's Mahdi Army got whupped pretty bad recently. The trendline of "Iraqi internal security problems" is going down.

2. The increasing competence, reliability and success of Iraqi government forces. The Iraqi army is in an upward spiral of successful operations breeding successful officers and units which can then train new officers and units. Iraqi army units did a lot of the fighting during the surge operations. IIRC, the Iraqi government took the lead against the Sadrists a month or two back, calling in US support after the fact in a few pockets. The trendline of "Iraqi internal security ability" is going up.

Since the invasion, US and allied forces have been covering the large gap between those lines. At some point in the not too distant future, those two trendlines cross. At that point, US forces become surplus to Iraqi requirements.

This is why a withdrawal during an Obama administration won't be a catastrophe, while a withdrawal during a Kerry administration would have been.

Posted by John Bragg | July 9, 2008 8:39 AM

Babbling about "mobs" being wiped out by the US merely reinforces the right wing nature of these comments. Why should I waste any more time on these idiots?

It's easy to run your mouth when it hasn't happened yet. We'll see.

But anybody who thinks everything is going well simply has no clue what's going in Iraq.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | July 9, 2008 3:52 PM