Skip to content
Categories:

‘Definitely there has to be a very clear timeline’

Post date:
Author:

It’s likely that the White House and the McCain campaign will call this a transcription error, or insist that Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari didn’t really mean what he said, or perhaps even parse the meaning of the word “timeline,” but for the rest of us, we now have yet another top Iraqi official demanding a “very clear” timeline for U.S. withdrawal. (thanks to S.W. for the tip)

The United States must provide a “very clear timeline” to withdraw its troops from Iraq as part of an agreement allowing them to stay beyond this year, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said on Sunday.

It was the strongest public assertion yet that Iraq is demanding a timeline. U.S. President George W. Bush has long resisted setting a firm schedule for pulling troops out of Iraq, although last month the White House began speaking of a general “time horizon” and “aspirational goals” to withdraw. […]

In an interview with Reuters, Zebari said the agreement, including the timeline, was “very close” and would probably be presented to the Iraqi parliament in early September.

Asked if Iraq would accept a document that did not include dates for a withdrawal, Zebari said: “No, no. Definitely there has to be a very clear timeline.”

And what might that timeline be? Iraqi officials have talked recently of an October 2010 deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops — which would, of course, be fairly close to the timeline articulated by Barack Obama — but Zebari said to wait and see.

For those keeping score at home, we now have Nuri al-Maliki, the prime minister of Iraq, Ali al-Dabbagh, the spokesperson for the Iraqi government, and Hoshiyar Zebari, the Iraqi foreign minister, all publicly endorsing a withdrawal timeline.

That sound you hear is John McCain losing his favorite campaign issue.

I suspect McCain will argue, again, that Iraqi support for a U.S. withdrawal is somehow politically motivated, and as he said a couple of weeks ago, “tailored” for “political purposes.” But let’s not forget, this argument still doesn’t work for the presumptive Republican nominee — as Matt Yglesias explained recently, “Even granting the premise that Maliki’s statements are purely about Iraqi domestic politics, all this amounts to is the fact that Barack Obama’s plan for Iraq is, according to both the Maliki government and the McCain campaign’s analysis, the only way forward that’s politically viable in Iraq.”

The other option available to McCain, of course, is for him to say what he’s been saying — he knows Iraq better than the Iraqis.

A few weeks ago, McCain was asked on NBC’s “Today” show, “[I]f the Iraqi government were to say — if you were President — we want a timetable for troops being to removed, would you agree with that?”

McCain responded, “I have been there too many times. I’ve met too many times with him, and I know what they want.”

Got that? The prime minister of Iraq and the Iraqi people may seem to want U.S. troops out of their country, but John McCain has been to Iraq and he “knows what they want.”

Jason Zengerle noted, “So, basically, the new McCain position on withdrawal seems to be: we shouldn’t listen to what the Iraqi government says it wants, we should listen to what McCain says it wants.”

This isn’t going to work.

Comments

  • Lew Scannon

    says:

    McCain knows what what the people of Iraq want because he listens to the ones the US military let speak to him. He just can’t remember if they’re Sunni or Shia…………..

  • JL

    says:

    McCain will say “Only McCain’s surge allowed Obama’s timeline to work.” Since McCain’s campaign manager will not let McCain use his cell phone, and he doesn’t know how to use the internet; he might not find out.

  • Bruno

    says:

    a general “time horizon” and “aspirational goals” to withdraw

    I have to admit that I like the ‘sound’ of aspirational goals for a time horizon The Republicans are so much better at using the English language to frame their talking points in a positive manner.

    It doesn’t matter if they’re describing their defeat (“a success that hasn’t happened”), or using deception to fool low-information voters (“death taxes” – “Clear Skies Initiative” – etc..), or denigrate Democrats (“Cut & Run politicians” – “Surrender Monkeys” – etc…)

    Why can’t the Democrats come up with some of their own catchy phrases? change you can believe in just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

  • Davis X. Machina

    says:

    They’ll ask us to leave when we tell them to ask us to leave, and not a minute earlier.

  • hark

    says:

    I think it’s political posturing on both sides. Until there’s a deal, none of this really matters. There were hints of details Friday, but apparently they weren’t firm.

    But we didn’t spend a trillion bucks, demolish another country, soil our international reputation and strain our military to the breaking point just to send all the troops home with nothing to show for it. Yes, the war profiteers made a fortune, carved out a significant portion of that trillion bucks for themselves, but I have to believe there was more to it than that.

    I don’t think we’re sending ALL the troops home in any two or three year time frame, and without our Exxons getting their hands on some of that oil that’s going to flow like a flood in the next five years.

  • joey (bjobotts)

    says:

    Are you kidding?? McCain will claim the usual, that the surge worked and that conditions on the.ground now dictate a clear time line for withdrawal. He will say that Obama would have pulled us out no matter what the conditions on the ground were and that is not responsible leadership. He will add he was always for any kind of timetable based on conditions on the ground.

    He will never admit he was wrong about anything or that Obama has good judgment. It is up to us to…point at him and laugh our asses off till his repressed rage comes out and he attacks one of us screaming either, “you f**king gook”, or “you f**king c*nt”…whoever it is that is closest for him to get his hands on.

  • Fred Aderson

    says:

    “This isn’t going to work”? I’m not so sure. The last two presidential elections have made me very, very doubtful of the wisdom of the U.S. electorate. They voted for and then re-elected the worst president in the history of this country. I fear they might just do it again and put McSame into office.

  • Bruno

    says:

    I agree with joey @ 14 and see the probability for McCain’s team to pull that stunt as very high (99%) …McCain will claim the usual, that the surge worked and that conditions on the.ground now dictate a clear time line for withdrawal…

    Except he will still refuse to call it a ‘time line’ because that is something only “Cut & Run” democrats use, so… it just happens that the Iraqis seem to agree with McCain’s conditions on the ground being great and that their ‘time horizon’ pretty much agrees with what McCain’s “Commanders on the ground” suggested.

  • Doctor Biobrain

    says:

    The last two presidential elections have made me very, very doubtful of the wisdom of the U.S. electorate. They voted for and then re-elected the worst president in the history of this country.

    As a reminder, Gore won the 2000 election, and it was the Supreme Court that was lacking in wisdom. And without voter fraud, politicized government agencies, fake terror warnings, and other such Republican tricks that won’t work this time, Kerry would have won in 2004. And even still, half the country clearly WASN’T lacking in such wisdom. Let’s not overstate things here. Even at their best, Republicans have to cheat to win elections; and this year, they’re from from their best.

  • JosephP

    says:

    This “agreement” between the US and Iraq is not constitutional and therefore nonbinding. In order for it to pass constitutional muster, it must be ratified by the US Senate. It’s simply another attempt of the administration to do an end run around the Legislative Branch.

  • The Answer is Orange

    says:

    McCain will argue that the damn liberal media purposely gave a false translation of his Zebari’s statement.

    Even if he said it in English.

    That “I know what they want” line is 100% pure McCreep showing through.

    Quick, someone mix a video of McCain strolling through Iraqi markets dubbed with “I know what boys like, I know what guys want.”

  • petorado

    says:

    This is proof you absolutely have to beat the US press over the head with the truth until they bleed out their ears before they start getting a hint of what is actually going on.

    But alas, McCain and the Republicans know exactly what provision guarantees some sort of withdrawal under a Republican regime: when the Iraqis finally sign away the rights to the oil underneath their feet to US oil interests. That what this has been about all along anyways.

  • agentX

    says:

    That sound you hear is John McCain losing his favorite campaign issue.”


    Sounds just like the sound of a million toilets being flushed simultaneously.
    McCain’s 5 pillars of strength:
    1. Iraq—gone
    2. Foreign Policy—gone (Thanks Georgia)
    3. Veterans Issues—gone
    4. Experience/judgement/character—gone
    5. Maverick-ness—gone(Thanks Bush, Iseman, Abramoff, Lobbyists)

    So what do McCrane voters have left, other than racism?