Approaching the Midnight Hour

Spencer Ackerman blogs for the Washington Independent: "Just months ago, setting a date for withdrawal was abject capitulation. Today it's victory! I don't believe I really have to comment on why this is so painfully stupid. I'd rather start inflating balloons for V-I Day. When do you think the statues of Bush go up in Baghdad's Firdous Square?

The Boston Globe editorial board writes: "While the Bush administration is spinning the agreement as an endorsement of a continued US presence in Iraq and as the upshot of a successful policy toward that country, the ways in which Iraqi leaders were brought around to approving the measure belie much of the wishful thinking. . . .

"[W]hat President Bush has wrought in Iraq is utterly different from what he promised. Iraq today is ruled by Iranian proteges and allies. It is deeply divided along ethnic and sectarian lines. It has some of the trappings of a democracy, but they are draped over factions and clans that show no genuine inclination to share power.

"Bush failed to achieve his aim of enabling Iraq to become unified, stable, and democratic. If Obama is to prevent Iraqis from descending into civil war after US forces leave, he will have to do so with political and diplomatic prowess, not shock and awe."

Meanwhile, Nancy A. Youssef writes for McClatchy Newspapers: "Although the Pentagon officially has welcomed the new accord on a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, senior military officials are privately criticizing President Bush for giving Iraq more control over U.S. military operations for the next three years than the U.S. had ever contemplated.

"Officials said U.S. negotiators had failed to understand how the two countries' political timetables would force the U.S. to make major concessions that relinquish much of the control over U.S. forces in Iraq. They said President Bush gave in to Iraqi demands to avoid leaving the decisions to his successor, Barack Obama.

"At times, 'President Bush wanted this deal more than the Iraqis did,' said a senior administration official who closely monitored the negotiations."

And Grenville Byford writes for Newsweek: "Everyone knows it is foolish to give someone power without responsibility. It is even more foolish, however, to accept responsibility without power--and that is just what the Bush administration has done with the new Status of Forces agreement with Iraq."

Deliberations

Qassim Abdul-Zahra reports for the Associated Press from Baghdad: "As opposition lawmakers shouted and pounded their desks in protest, Iraq's parliament on Thursday resumed deliberating a proposed security agreement with the United States that would allow American forces to stay there three more years. . . .

"Lawmakers loyal to Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr sought to disrupt Thursday's reading as they did the previous day, when they scuffled with security guards after one of them aggressively approached the bench while a lawmaker from the ruling Shiite coalition was reading the text aloud. . . .

"Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki . . . assured Iraqis that the timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. forces under the agreement -- out of Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009, and the entire country by the end of 2011 -- is not negotiable and could even be moved up."

Back in D.C., in the meantime, Ross Colvin writes for Reuters: "The U.S. government is refusing to make public the security pact it has signed with Iraq, even though it has already been published in full in an Iraqi newspaper, a congressional hearing was told on Wednesday."