It’s Cut-and-Run Time
There’s two ways to look at the rush-to-judgment the Bush administration is forcing on Iraqis as they struggle toward a constitution.
A certain truth is that without a gun at their heads, Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites would be at the bargaining table for years to come.
Just as certain, is the fact that the timetable argued as inviolable is a political necessity and the politics at risk are American rather than Iraqi.
George Bush has a greased rope to climb so far as Iraq and his mismanaged war is concerned and even he has to finally recognize a legacy-at-stake when he sees one. So, it’s cut-and-run time in a war where he’s consistently claimed America will ‘stay the course.’ The timekeeper for the cut before the run is American Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, who’s just cut-and-run himself from duties as Ambassador to Afghanistan, his native country.
Khalilzad is a guy who knows the ropes of this part of the world and, over a career in American politics, he’s been as successful a nego…