Are the Democrats and Bushies playing good cop/bad cop with the Iraqis?

[babylonsister]

http://www.slate.com/id/2165918/fr/flyout

In Search of a Political Mission
Are the Democrats and Bushies playing good cop/bad cop with the Iraqis?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Wednesday, May 9, 2007

The House Democrats' latest proposal for linking war spending to troop withdrawals could serve both parties' interests in the debate on Iraq. In fact, if the Bush White House were more strategically shrewd, or if it enjoyed closer ties with Congress, I'd almost wonder if the idea were a jointly planned ploy—a game of good cop/bad cop designed to push the Iraqi leaders into a political settlement.

With the Democrats' original timetable for withdrawal predictably vetoed, the new idea calls for Congress to approve half of President Bush's request for emergency war funding—enough to last through September—but also to require a report, by July 13, on how well the Iraqi government is progressing toward political stability and military self-reliance. Upon receipt of that report, Congress would vote on whether to free up the second half of funding or to begin preparations for a pullout.

Presumably, if things are going well, American troops might be allowed to stay longer; if things aren't going well, it might be time to cut losses and leave.

The argument that withdrawing means surrender—or that those in favor of withdrawal are defeatists—has always been a canard. Many critics have argued from the beginning of the occupation that the Iraqi political factions would have no incentive to reconcile their differences as long as they're assured that the American armed forces will remain indefinitely—and that, therefore, the only way to rouse the factions from their infantilized complacence is to make clear that those forces might really leave.

I won't pretend to know what Vice President Dick Cheney is telling Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the other Iraqi leaders during their talks in Baghdad today. But one thing he might—and should—be telling them is that things are quickly slipping out of his (yes, even his) control and that, if the factions don't meet at least a few of the political benchmarks that President Bush himself laid out just four months ago, a large U.S. military presence cannot be sustained.

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