Pivoting off of Spencer's analysis of the upcoming withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Iraqi cities (and my post from earlier in the week), it's important to recognize how well the military and the U.S. government overall are handling the politics of the situation: The Americans asked to keep open an outpost in Sadr City, the Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad that once served as the base of Shiite militias, only to be rebuffed.“This is one we wanted,” Brig. Gen. John M. Murray said. “The Iraqi government said ‘no,’ so now we are leaving.”... The Americans have been strikingly sensitive to [Iraqi Prime Minister] Maliki’s political position, emphasizing Iraqi primacy in all public remarks. They have declined to specify how many American troops will remain in cities, seemingly fearful of undercutting Mr. Maliki’s public declarations of a full withdrawal....“Symbolically,” General Lanza said of the withdrawing American forces ahead of Tuesday, “this is what we want for the Iraqis as a sovereign nation.”Being a world power demands humility. In the last administration, this pullback would have become some kind of propaganda party and political club, complete with banner; now, the Iraqis are front and center. That doesn't mean this can't go terribly wrong -- it certainly can, and we're going to see at the very least a dicey few months in Iraq -- but Maliki seems to be staking his political future on the move. That's the point of this withdrawal effort: Providing incentives for Iraqi political leaders to take responsibility for the future of their country.
-- Tim Fernholz
