Another Great Post from Iraq The Model

To all those who come here I highly recomend that you take the time to check out Iraq The Model it is a great Iraqi Blog. See the conflict from the eyes of someone that lives there.

IRAQ THE MODEL
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Are we going to see a timetable?
Iraqi leaders, politicians and Sunni clerics agreed on asking the US to define a timetable for pulling the troops, this is all over the news websites so I’m not going to add further details here but I’d like to discuss the development with you.No government in this world acts 100% independently and there are always internal and/or external factors and pressures that affect the decisions of any given government.That’s why I think that Iraqi officials wouldn’t have agreed to the opposition’s demands if not for pressure from the US administration and I have a strong feeling that the US will announce a timetable for withdrawing the troops soon.I think the US administration kind of drove the Sunni insurgency leaders to ask for this in a way that allowed the Iraqi and US government the chance to win a good deal of time while they can reach a reasonable progress in building Iraq’s army and police forces. Everyone wants to see an end for violence but this violence comes from more than one group of fighters; one (al-Qaeda) can be dealt with only by military means but what about the other two? The local Islamic extremists, tribal fighters and former Ba’athists are also tired of fighting and they do want the power they lost (at least some of it) back and they had realized that there’s no way to do that with violence but they kept carrying out attacks as a way to voice their demands and to pressurize the US and Iraqi government to respond positively.On the other hand, Iraqi and American governments kept saying that putting a timetable for pulling the troops (let alone an immediate step) would empower the terrorists and thus was considered a redline for a long time but now things have changed; Sunni insurgents and the factions that support them are saying that they are going to join the political process and they’re ready to stop targeting Iraqis if a timetable was defined and if their right to “resist” was recognized.