(Cross-posted here.)

Guess who wants a timetable for American withdrawal from Iraq? Obama? Clinton? Feingold? Some other godless Marxist, er, Democrat?

No, Rush. Sorry, Sean. Wrong again, Bill-O.

Try the Iraqi prime minister:

Prime Minister Nouiri al-Maliki tossed a bombshell today. In a news conference about the still-secret US-Iraqi talks, which began in March, Maliki for the first time said that the chances of securing the pact are just about nil, and instead he said Iraq will seek a limited, ad hoc renewal of the US authority to remain in Iraq, rather than a broad-based accord. More important, Maliki and his top security adviser, Mouwaffak al-Rubaie added that Iraq intends to link even a limited accord to a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces."

But this isn't necessarily good news. While this says that Maliki and company want Americans to get out, this may not be the case. It's someone else that does:

Don't think for a minute that Maliki, or his Shiite allies, want the US forces to leave. But they are under a lot of pressure. First of all, they are under pressure from Iran, whose regime remains the chief ally of the ruling alliance of Shiites, including Maliki's Dawa party and the powerful Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), led by Abdel Aziz al-Hakim. Iran's goal is to neutralize Iraq as a possible threat to Iran, and Iran's leaders are pressuring Maliki and Hakim to loosen their reliance on the United States.

Bush foreign policy has manipulated Iraq into a situation where Iran is pulling the strings of Iraq's government. It's partially due to the fact that Bush never understood the country he was invading. How could they not know that Sunni and Shiite was more important than Iranian and Iraqi? How could they not have seen religious factions as the true ties that bind?

Well, as McCain says, perhaps that's not too important.