If Iraq wants us to leave, let's do it with all haste

WASHINGTON — What a rare opportunity: It seems the Iraqi government wants us out of there on the agreed upon end-of-2011 timetable, no slippage or remaining troops to clean up things.

At least that is what Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has told the Wall Street Journal and I, for one, am not only willing to take his word as gospel but hope fervently that the Obama administration feels the same as the new year dawns. Actually, why not just begin the exodus a few months early, turning the security over to Iraqi military and police?

Maliki, who has had his own political difficulties since the elections and now holds tenuous control through a shaky coalition, nevertheless put it this way to the Journal: "The last American soldier will leave Iraq. This agreement is not subject to extension, not subject to alteration. It is sealed."

To make his remarks more palatable to concerned American allies, he said that he also would not allow his nation to be pulled into an alliance with Iran. We will see. There are forces within the Iraqi government who would like that to happen and Maliki's loose hold may make such a promise difficult to keep.

Certainly there will be pressures in that direction. But our concern should be in relieving the burden of this unfortunate occupation both in manpower and money, and in damage to American foreign policy.

This is a war that should never have happened, one based, as we all know, on false assumptions, bad intelligence and terrible judgment after the terrorist attack on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

Because of that mistake, we were diverted from achieving what might have been a significant dismantling of the al Qaeda network, including the capture or elimination of Osama bin Laden and his Taliban allies, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. The drawdown of troops and money to support the Iraq action cut short a successful incursion into the Afghan mountains and set the stage for an increasingly impossible situation now in Afghanistan.

Veteran foreign policy observers have always considered that a residue of U.S. support troops would remain after the deadline for withdrawal, if only to assure the safety of the U.S. diplomatic mission and carry out orderly dismantling of the very large American civilian presence, including contactors helping rebuild the Iraq infrastructure. Maliki seems to think his own forces are now capable of assuring security.