What we keep overlooking in our own American debate about withdrawing troops is what the Iraqi people want. M

Iraqi leaders remind U.S. that pullout is a two-sided decision

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Iraqi leaders remind U.S. that pullout is a two-sided decision - Yahoo! News

The election-year debate over whether and when to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq usually seems like a purely American conversation. Democrat Barack Obama supports a timetable for withdrawal; Republican John McCain, like President Bush, opposes one.

Iraqi officials provided a sharp reminder this week that they, and their own domestic politics, will play an important role in this decision as well.

On Monday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said for the first time that he was considering a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal. On Tuesday, Iraqi national security adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie hardened that stance, saying his country would reject any security deal with the U.S. that doesn't have specific dates for the pullout of U.S. troops.

This puts the Bush administration in an interesting spot. On the one hand, Bush has consistently rejected setting any kind of a timetable, insisting it would tie his hands, ignore conditions on the ground and signal enemy forces that they can lie low until the U.S. leaves. On the other, the administration needs Iraqi cooperation to let U.S. troops stay on, because the United Nations authority under which U.S. forces have been operating expires the end of this year.

The Iraqi leaders' comments reflect the political debate in their own country, and Americans aren't terribly popular there. An opinion poll for the BBC, ABC and two other TV networks in March showed that Iraqis overwhelmingly (72%-26%) oppose the presence of U.S. forces. Dictator Saddam Hussein might have been able to ignore public opinion polls, but al-Maliki can't — especially when his chief rival in the upcoming provincial elections, firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, has long supported a timetable for a U.S. exit.