Bring 'em home

The Iraqi government is quibbling over important language in a security agreement with the United States, claiming anxiety over an open-ended withdrawal date for U.S. troops.

It's hard to not feel a small measure of pride. Their government is strong enough to argue over verbiage.

The current draft of the proposal says that US troops will leave Iraq no later than Dec. 31st, 2011, unless the government asks them to stay to help with something or other of a martial nature.

The Iraqi government is worried that any provision for a delay in the US withdrawal will be used to extend U.S. presence in Iraq, regardless of necessity. Given the U.S. track record for sticking to the nuts and bolts of its agreements in Iraq, this may be a wise thing to quibble over.

Cynical jokes aside, the United States is trying to keep the troop extension provision in the agreement, and citizens should be wondering why. Why would the government want an open-ended withdrawal date? A security agreement like this is a symbol of Iraq's readiness to stand on its own. The validity of that symbol will be decided by the particulars of the agreement itself. A provision that allows the U.S. military a pretty much open invitation is a piss-poor symbol of Iraqi sovereignty.

So why is the U.S. trying to tarnish this symbol? Our goal, remember, aside from finding WMDs, was to create a stable democratic government to replace Saddam's regime, which, theoretically, we've done. If we want to stay, we either have an ulterior motive, ('oil!' shouts the left) or this stable democratic government isn't as stable as we've been told it is.

Would this mean there's a foreseen chance of truly needing a little more time past 2011 to reach an appealing, more stable security?

It's certainly possible, but it's still hard to be trusting.

Or maybe now is an unwinnable moment. Maybe we have failed in creating a government that is capable of defending itself with a U.S.created military, and have sullied that which we were attempting to create.