Dick and George’s feckless adventure

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki has demanded a firm timetable for withdrawal of US forces from Iraq — without conditions:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said Monday that an agreement on the future of U.S. forces in Iraq must include a firm withdrawal date and that Iraq wants them out of the country by the end of 2011.

It was the first time Maliki explicitly demanded a fixed deadline for the departure of all U.S. troops from Iraq. His words appeared to rule out the presence of any U.S. military advisors, special forces and air support after the withdrawal date.

Condi Rice was supposed to smooth this over and get Maliki to agree to the condition-based withdrawal and a permanent US presence, but her record for failure continues unblemished.

The hardened position came after last week’s visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Iraq, where she met with Maliki in hopes of clearing obstacles to an agreement. But officials familiar with the talks say that the prime minister remains undecided about whether he even wants a deal.

Heckuva job, Condi.

Maliki is demanding full US withdrawal on a schedule because, politically, he has little choice. He made the remarks to a meeting of Shiite tribal leaders. His rival, Muqtada al Sadr, has risen to power largely through confrontation with the US and because his demands for an end to US occupation has been popular with Iraqis. Moreover, Maliki may be forced to demand unconditional withdrawal because Iranian-born Shiite Ayatollah Sistani, Iraq’s religious leader, and Iranian leaders find any continued US presence unacceptable.

He is under pressure from Iran, as well as the grand ayatollahs in Iraq’s Shiite shrine city of Najaf, who could come out against an agreement if they feel it infringes on Iraq’s sovereignty. At a time when he needs political cover, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the largest Shiite party in his alliance, is also deeply divided on ties with the Americans.

The senior leadership of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (formerly the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq) was harbored by Iran for years while exiled during Saddam’s rule of Iraq. Its militias, the Badr Brigades, were trained and armed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, and fought with Iran against Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. With Sadr’s Mahdi Army dramatically curtailing its operations, it is now the most powerful paramilitary presence in Iraq, and staunchly pro-Iranian.

The Bush administration’s reaction to this new permutation of the Iraq clusterfuck is classic Bush administration: denial.

In Crawford, Texas, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said: “Any decisions on troops will be based on the conditions on the ground in Iraq. That has always been our position. It continues to be our position.

“There is no agreement until there’s an agreement signed,” he added. “There are discussions that continue in Baghdad.”

Last year, Bush stated unequivocally that we would honor a request by Maliki’s government to leave Iraq:

We are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government. This is a sovereign nation. Twelve million people went to the polls to approve a constitution. It’s their government’s choice. If they were to say, leave, we would leave.

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This is a sovereign nation, Martha. We are there at their request. And hopefully the Iraqi government would be wise enough to recognize that without coalition troops, the U.S. troops, that they would endanger their very existence. And it’s why we work very closely with them, to make sure that the realities are such that they wouldn’t make that request — but if they were to make the request, we wouldn’t be there.

Now he’s threatening to hold his breath if he doesn’t get his way, apparently.

Maliki’s government is also intent on disassembling the network of Sunni militia groups which the US put together and which is credited with much of the improvement in security in Anbar and other Sunni inhabited provinces — without the integration of those militias into Iraqi security forces and political reconciliation promised to Sunni tribal leaders by US generals. This will almost certainly spark renewed insurgency among Sunni groups currently armed and paid by the United States — if this fighting occurs next year, Maliki will likely even request US assistance in dispatching his Sunni enemies.

So, after five and a half years, at least $3,000,000,000,000.00, over 35,000 US casualties, and a depleted military force structure, we are left with an Iraq which is more concerned with pleasing neighboring axis-of-evil Iran than with making an increasingly lame George Bush or the United States happy. Ahmed Chalabi and his Iranian handlers couldn’t have planned this any better.