davidvoegtle.net

POLITICS: Bush Forced al-Maliki to Back Down on Pullout in 2006: WASHINGTON, Jul 28 (IPS) – Many official and unofficial proponents of a long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq are dismissing Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s demand for a U.S. timeline for withdrawal as political posturing, assuming that he will abandon it under pressure.

But that demand was foreshadowed by an episode in June 2006 in which al-Maliki circulated a draft policy calling for negotiation of just such a withdrawal timetable and the George W. Bush administration had to intervene to force the prime minister to drop it.

(Via IPS Inter Press Service.)

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been consistently and regularly browbeat into toeing the administration’s demands on Iraq. It’s no wonder that he’s recently been using rhetoric seeking to establish his independence. For a “sovereign” nation, Iraq sure seems to cave a lot on questions of determining their own destiny.