50 members of congress have co-sponsored a resolution calling for the u.s. to begin its withdrawal from iraq no later than october 1, 2006. in a completely unrelated coincidence, the deadline will fall one month before every member of the house has to run for reelection.
a while ago i came out in favor of a timetable to withdraw from iraq. officially the bush administration has been consistently against setting any timetables for iraq, calling them "artificial time lines". but the fact is, the entire iraqi project has been operated on the basis of artificial time lines. only these time lines were drawn up with an eye to the american election cycle.
you want an example? there are many. the resolution authorizing the use of force against iraq was pushed to a vote in october 2002, just before the american mid-term elections. the vote also put all the 2004 presidential hopefuls in the senate on the spot--forcing them to decide whether to support the war or risk the charge of being unpatriotic later. all of the democratic senators who later ran for president ended up voting in favor of the resolution.
more examples: the original plan for the invasion of iraq, called for a quick invasion in march 2003, followed by a withdrawal of most forces by the early fall, giving a nice victory celebration for the president as he started into his reelection campaign. when that didn't work, the u.s. planned to hold "regional caucuses" in early summer 2004, leading up to a handover of sovereignty to the new "elected" regime on june 30, 2004, allowing the focus of the summer news cycle to shift to the president's campaign. but the caucus plan made such a mockery of the president's promises of creating a democratic iraq that it collapsed when grand ayatollah sistani criticized the plan as undemocratic. instead, sistani demanded a national election before the handover. fearing that elections would be messy, the u.s. would only agree to hold elections if they took place after november 2004, when the american presidential elections were scheduled. and so, the u.s. made a big deal of handing over "sovereignty" to a hand-picked iraqi government on june 30, 2004 with elections delayed until early 2005, safely after the election.
meanwhile, the u.s. lost the first battle of fallujah and the city fell to the insurgency. the americans allowed the city to fester. the counter-attack to retake the city was delayed until november 8, 2004, the monday after the presidential elections.
so now, with a new election on the horizon and polls showing most americans don't approve of the war anymore, we start to hear murmurs about withdrawal. there was that leaked story about a withdrawal plan from last month. the plan was vague, but still forecast most troops arrive home by the end of next summer, before the 2006 elections.
as i mentioned above, i think a timetable to withdraw is a good idea, and i support the idea even if it is motivated by crass political calculations. but still, save us the garbage about "artificial time lines." there haven't been any timelines in this war that weren't artificial.
