A Timeline For Withdrawal from Iraq

Posted on March 27, 2007
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid

A Hero among columnists, E.J. Dionne Jr., of the Washington Post set it up this morning, in his piece “An Antiwar Tide on The Rise.” And then, it happened. Jaded folks like me turned up the radio in a hurry on the drive home when we heard that the Senate had actually passed the war spending bill with a timeline for withdrawall. Sometimes Mr. Dionne says the right thing because it’s the right thing to say. I admire that. This time, I believe, he counted the votes and knew something big would likely happen.

It’s a bittersweet victory for liberals and progressives. It’s way more funding than needed to achieve our objectives, that is, ending the debacle as swiftly as possible. It is a victory nonetheless.

E.J. nailed it, writing about the House passage of a similar bill:

Oddly, the president’s harsh rhetoric against the House version of the supplemental appropriations bill to finance the Iraq war may have been decisive in sealing Pelosi’s victory. “The vehemence with which the president opposed it made it clear to a lot of people that this was a change in direction and that it was significant,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

We can thank the president and his shrill response for letting the left know he took the house vote hard. I’d quote him, but he never actually says anything. It’s how he says it that makes all the difference.

John McCain said “This bill should be named the date certain for surrender act.” in an NPR report. He continues, suggesting that you don’t tell the enemy when you’re leaving.

But this isn’t that kind of war. Neither surrender nor victory is possible. The U.S. began losing somewhere around the time it became clear there really were no WMD. The slide to ignominy began before that, with Bush’s SOTU speech building the case for war in Iraq in 2003, saying, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” It continued with Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations. Every time George Bush changed his rhetoric about the nature of the mission in Iraq was a surrender. For the U.S. to stop policing a civil war, implies no greater surrender than those implied by the constant missteps and miscalculations by Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush.

If any victory can be achieved it will be for the Iraqis alone. Their victory will be an end to sectarian violence. They have to achieve this victory politically, if it is to be won.

To the extent the U.S. is an irritant in the region, a timetable could as easily provide a strong incentive for Iraqis to work out their political differences, knowing that in a relatively short time they’ll be on their own.