Bush needs to get off the SOFA - Getting out of Iraq

Last week was tough for President Bush, mainly because of Iraq. With most Americans wanting U.S. troops out of that country, the Democrats in Congress wanting U.S. troops out, most Iraqis wanting U.S. troops out, and the Iraqi government wanting U.S. troops out, our boy-in-a-bubble President finally caught on that it may be time to start thinking about pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq.

I’m old enough to remember all the way back to the summer of 2006 when ethnic cleansing in Baghdad and other places was leading to millions of Iraqis being displaced as the country teetered on the brink of all-out civil war. Donald Rumsfeld, not-yet-indicted war criminal, was still in charge at the Pentagon and the metric for success in Iraq was mind-numbingly simple: if we stay we win, if we leave we lose. In November of 2006, millions and millions of my fellow Americans rejected that idea and voted for a new strategy in Iraq – one designed to bring our troops home. Too bad our President doesn’t read the newspaper, so he never got the message.

Right now, the Bush administration is negotiating a Status of Forces Agreement with the Iraqis that will allow for U.S. troops to remain in Iraq for a good, long time. The Iraqi government, like everyone else not directly connected to the White House or the McCain campaign, would like to have some kind of idea of when they can reasonably expect to no longer be living under U.S. military occupation. The McBushes, as convinced as ever that staying = winning, see continuing the occupation as their goal. The problem is that the President (and the Republican candidate who would like to succeed him) has gone on the record saying that the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is based entirely on the Iraqi government’s wishes. Last May, the President said, “We are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government. This is a sovereign nation...It's their government's choice. If they were to say, leave, we would leave.” He even said it with a straight face.

Of course, he doesn’t want to leave, so he’s going to drag out these SOFA negotiations as long as possible. It won’t work, though, because there are Iraqi elections scheduled for this fall and no Iraqi candidate can hope to win on a platform of allowing U.S. troops to stay indefinitely. All that will happen if the U.S. doesn’t agree to some kind of timeframe, timeline, or timetable for withdrawal is the Iraqis will look elsewhere for military support. And it’s a safe bet that the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government won’t have to look much further than Shiite-dominated Iran. That’s why President Lame Duck (the great resistor of timetables) finally broke down last week and agreed to a “general time horizon” for troop withdrawal. And it only took him two years.

Clearly, this was the signal that somebody inside the White House clipping service was waiting for because the day after Yale’s most famous male cheerleader made this seismic shift from “we can’t leave” to “we can’t leave yet,” an e-mail intended for internal distribution was sent to thousands of people who signed up for official press releases, announcements, and etc. It contained a Reuters article about the Prime Minister of Iraq supporting Barack Obama’s plan to withdraw U.S. combat troops within about 16 months. Maybe it was an honest mistake, but I highly doubt it. In this White House, Barack Obama is like Voldemort in that his name must not be spoken (the closest the President ever comes is referring to him as “a particular presidential candidate”). So the only thing worse than an article appearing under the headline, “Iraq PM backs Obama troop exit plan” is calling attention to that story by giving it wide distribution on a Bush administration mailing list. Congratulations, White House clipping service, you have done more to bring our troops home with one keystroke than the Democrats have managed to do in the year-and-a-half that they’ve controlled Congress.

I’ve been known to turn the proverbial phrase and I fancy myself quite the writer, but I’m not good enough to come up with “time horizon.” As a concept, it’s too abstract for me to even try to wrap my head around. No matter how much “time” you’re talking about, you can never actually reach the “horizon.” As a unit, it’s un-measurable, but when applied to the President’s Iraq policy, the “time horizon” makes perfect sense. After all, the reason we went to Iraq isn’t the reason we’re still in Iraq, if the “surge” is working we can’t leave, and if it isn’t working, we have to stay. It reminds me of that Eagles lyric, “you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”