Did the US Sabotage the Iraqi Peace Plan?

A Newer World

It sure looks that way.

As I noted here and here, early reports on Maliki’s national reconciliation plan indicated that it included a key component demanded by nationalist insurgent groups: a finite timetable for US withdrawl.

When the plan was actually released yesterday, however, no timetable was included. This is, apparently, a deal killer for the insurgents who refuse to reconcile with anyone without guarantees that the US plans to leave.

According to the BBC’s Paul Reynolds, US politics made it impossible for the Bush administration to allow Maliki to endorse a timetable for withdrawl:

The “reconciliation” plan announced on Sunday by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki is part of a grand strategy by the Bush administration to stabilise Iraq - or to stabilise the perception of Iraq - in advance of the mid-term elections for Congress in November…

…The main weakness of the plan at first reading is that it does not set a timetable for a withdrawal of foreign troops.

This is what really interests the nationalist insurgents - yet it is the very thing that the plan could not offer.

Instead the parliament is to be asked to set a date for the assumption of Iraq security control. That could be some time away.

The plan could not offer a timetable or deadline for withdrawal because the avoidance of such a deadline has become absolutely central to the selling of the Iraq strategy by the Bush administration in the gathering mid-term election campaign.

I keep waiting for the US media to explore the backstory here, but so far it has been woefully negligent. After ignoring the story for days, the Washington Post’s article today doesn’t even mention the timetable, saying only that “the reconciliation plan has gone through several revisions.”

So what’s the deal here? Is Karl Rove really setting military strategy in Iraq? Is the Bush administration really playing politics with people’s lives?