John McCain needs to wake up and smell the Arabic coffee.
I know this is not an easy time for him. When you have been beaten up for four years because of your support for the Iraq war, and then you get something big right your support for the surge you want to be able to savour that for a while. You want to make your rightness the issue of this US election.
McCain was right about the surge. It has helped to stablise Iraq and create a better chance there for political reconciliation. But Iraq has always been a story full of surprises. And one of the most important political surprises is how quickly the surge has made Iraq safe for Barack Obama's foreign policy and for the election policy of the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.
Do not believe for a second that there was any mistranslation when Maliki blurted out to the German magazine Der Spiegel recently that Obama's withdrawal timetable for US combat troops from Iraq 16 months after the next US president is sworn in ''could be suitable''. Maliki was quite specific: ''Who wants to exit in a quicker way has a better assessment of the situation in Iraq.''
He was speaking a deep truth: the modicum of stability produced by the surge has changed the political dynamics of the Iraq story not irreversibly yet, not as much as necessary yet, but enough to have important ramifications. US officials in Iraq tell me that the success of the Sunni tribes in beating back Al Qaeda in their regions and the success of the mainstream Shiites in beating back Moktada al-Sadr's militia and other pro-Iranian elements in Baghdad and Basra has Iraqis looking at themselves differently and therefore at America's presence in Iraq differently.
More and more mainstream Iraqi politicians believe they are able to run their own affairs, and fewer and fewer mainstream Americans believe we are able to devote another presidency to Iraq.
''Americans are looking forward to the post-Iraq phase of US politics, and Iraqis are now looking forward to the post-American phase of Iraqi politics,'' said Michael Mandelbaum, a foreign policy expert at Johns Hopkins University. That is the reality of post-surge Iraq and post-subprime America and any leader in either country who ignores that reality does so at his or her peril.
Forget about our narrative on this war how we ''liberated Iraq''. Think about the Iraqi narrative. No one likes to be liberated or occupied by someone else. It is humiliating. What is important is how, with the help of the surge, Iraqis have finally started to liberate themselves the Sunnis from their extremists and the Shiites from their extremists. The question in Iraq is: Can these parallel liberation movements actually merge into a single national liberation/unity movement? I don't know.
But I do know this: While we would like an Iraqi national movement binding Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis to coalesce, we don't want it coalescing in opposition to us. Running against the continued US presence in Iraq will be a very tempting campaign theme for Iraqi politicians in both the upcoming Iraqi provincial and parliamentary elections if Iraq continues to stabilise.
So Prime Minister Maliki was actually sending two important messages via Der Spiegel: That to the extent that the Iraqi Army and state continue to get on their feet, the continued Us occupation is going to become an issue in Iraqi politics and no politician particularly Maliki is going to let himself be outdone by rivals in calling for the Americans to go. And he was also telling us to remember something: Iraq is an Arab country. It is the heart of the Arab world. It is not Germany. It is not Japan. To the extent that it comes together as a country, it will not tolerate a prolonged, highly visible US military presence.
So McCain, who called the surge right, may get little credit, because the story now is about post-surge Iraq. McCain's post-surge view which also may be right is that Iraqis still do not have the military force capable of protecting their homeland and need more US help in nation-building. Meanwhile Barack Obama, who was not a surge supporter and simply stuck to his 16-month withdrawal timetable, finds himself by luck or smarts in perfect harmony with the post-surge mood in Iraq. His timetable may be too short, but Obama can worry about that later.
All of which suggests that the right position on Iraq today is probably ''McBama'' stick to a clear withdrawal timetable because post-surge Iraqi and American politics will tolerate nothing else but leave yourself some wiggle room if things keep getting better, but not exactly on schedule. Always remember: the more Iraq is seen as succeeding on its own, without US scaffolding, the more positive impact it will have on the neighbourhood.
New York Times