Bush administration agrees to FIXED timeline of withdrawal from Iraq.
After all that, the Bush administration signs onto withdrawing on a FIXED timeline from cities by June 30, 2009, and withdrawal from Iraq by Dec 31, 2011.
On immunity, US soldiers are only subject to Iraqi justice for "in cases of serious or premeditated felonies committed outside their official duties." On contractors, the Iraqis have "primary jurisdiction," but the contractors will be held in US custody.
(Sadr is against. It will be popular to oppose.)
On immunity, US soldiers are only subject to Iraqi justice for "in cases of serious or premeditated felonies committed outside their official duties." On contractors, the Iraqis have "primary jurisdiction," but the contractors will be held in US custody.
(Sadr is against. It will be popular to oppose.)
posted by mikevotes at
7:14 AM
4 Comments:
Bush just agreed to Obama's plan.
It's hard to see how this doesn't undermine McCain. He is now pushing for more and longer involvement in Iraq than even The Decider wants.
As I've said before, Iraq is a losing issue for the Republicans. With the majority of the nation considering Iraq to have been a "mistake", the matter of "winning" that mistake is not particularly compelling. If we pulled out tomorrow and simply called it victory I don't think very many people would object.
By
Todd Dugdale , at 10:10 AM
I don't know how much it undermines McCain because no one's talking about Iraq anymore. Technically, certainly it does, but now that we're in the day to day narrative phase, I don't know if it really comes up.
Of course, it's a card in Obama's pocket if they need to flip topics in the next week.
And, the people are definitely on the withdrawal side.
By
mikevotes, at 10:23 AM
I will revise that and say that it takes Iraq away from McCain as an issue.
He can use it as an example of how "he isn't Bush", but it would be costly to be seen as even more hawkish than The Decider.
And if Bush can't get this SoFA passed in Iraq, it will mean that McCain's even tougher stance is DOA. It also feeds into Obama's position that the Iraqi occupation has only made Iran more powerful in the region.
Domestic politics aside, however, this SoFA means that using Iraq as a base to attack Iran just got very difficult. Turkey will not want to be the base for an air war.
By
Todd Dugdale , at 2:22 PM
Yeah. Definitely on McCain. Also on the Iran attack logistics.
And, I'm curiously watching the SoFA negotiations. On the US side they're talking completion, but it seems like on the Iraqi side, the election pressures have torn out the Shia political support.
By
mikevotes, at 4:23 PM
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