On the road for the holiday, but here's a little nugget--and it's updated below. And let's notice that this Thanksgiving, George W. Bush did not bother to visit the troops in Iraq and serve them turkey....

As George W. Bush continues his vanishing presidency act, he's not had to deal with much fallout from the agreement his administration has negotiated with the government of Iraq--an agreement that compels the U.S. to remove its forces from Iraq. Given that Bush had repeatedly vowed that he would not agree to any timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq--claiming that making such a commitment would endanger the United States and its soldiers--his decision to do so is the equivalent of raising a white flag. Since most of the public barely bothers to think about Bush these days, his flip-flop has not been such a big deal. But those who watch Iraq closely have seen it for what it is.

For example, here's a press release from the Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation:

Peter Galbraith, a top Iraq expert and former ambassador to Croatia, issued a statement today on the status of forces agreement recently signed by the United States and Iraq...."The agreement represents a stunning and humiliating reversal of course by the Bush administration, which had vehemently opposed any timetable for withdrawal from Iraq," said Galbraith.

Iraqi and American negotiators have been working on the security agreement for over a year. The Iraqi parliament is expected to vote on the pact on Wednesday. To pass, the agreement needs to get 138 votes out of 275 Iraqi lawmakers and also must be ratified by the Iraqi presidential council.

"For the last two years, President Bush has pretended that Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki is a democrat and an American ally. In fact, Maliki is a sectarian Shiite politician who heads a government dominated by pro-Iranian religious parties," remarked Galbraith. "The U.S. presence now no longer serves the interests of Iraq's ruling Shiite religious parties or their Iranian allies, so we are now being asked to leave."

The agreement mandates that "all U.S. combat forces" withdraw from urban areas in Iraq by June 30, 2009, and that "all U.S. forces" withdraw from the country by December 31, 2011. The agreement upholds Iraq's "sovereign right" to demand the departure of U.S. forces anytime and recognizes the United States' "sovereign right" to remove its forces earlier than the end of 2011.

....The agreement also bars permanent American bases in Iraq, prohibits the United States from using Iraqi territory to launch attacks against other nations, and bars any residual U.S. forces in Iraq beyond the end of 2011.

Galbraith concluded: "While U.S. withdrawal is made easier by the fact that both the Iraqi government and the new U.S. administration want American troops out, the confluence of events leading to the agreement underscores the folly of President Bush's lost Iraq war."

The Iraqi parliament was expected to vote on this agreement on Wednesday.

UPDATE: On Thursday, the Iraqi parliament approved the agreement, adding some provisions that restrict certain U.S. military activities in Iraq.

Forget the recent manufactured news about whether Barack Obama was shifting his position on Iraq. (He's always said that he has a goal of withdrawing troops within 16 months and would aim to do so in a responsible and careful manner, meaning that it could take longer or shorter.) The real story is this: in the general election, one candidate says, This war was a mistake and we must end it and begin disengagement; the other proclaims, This war was righteous and we must keep our troops there (maybe up to 100 years) and win it. Given public opinion on the war, it's no wonder that the Republicans and the McCain campaign want to muddy up this stark difference--and the best way for them to do that is to make it seem as if Barack Obama has an unsteady hand when it comes to the war. So expect the desperate GOPers to pounce on any Obama remark that they can twist into purported proof that Obama is not really sure what he wants to do about Iraq.

But on Iraq the McCainiacs have more to worry about then Obama. They are being undermined by Baghdad. On Monday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said that he wants some sort of timetable for a U.S. troops withdrawal. Though his national security adviser added that any timetable would be conditioned on the ability of Iraqi forces to provide security, this was the first time the PM had mentioned a schedule for disengagement. (All politics is local: Maliki's party faces a stiff challenge in the upcoming provincial elections from Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has called for the departure of U.S. military forces.)

So how can McCain and his gang now accuse Obama of being a defeatist surrender-monkey when his call for a timetable for withdrawal is echoed by the leadership of Iraq? This is a real problem for McCain. He has no edge on Obama when it comes to the economy. His only hope of upstaging Obama--policy-wise--is on national security matters, with the Iraq war front and center. But if the Iraqis don't buy the absolute necessity of U.S. troops remaining in Iraq, what does McCain have to offer? (How do you say nada in Arabic?)

I've been repeating this for a year--sorry to do so again--but the reality on the ground in Iraq in the fall will have an impact on the U.S. election. The connection used to be obvious: bad news there would be bad news for the Republicans here. But there's now another possibility: good news there could be bad news for Republicans here. If there are too many explosions and little political progress in Iraq, McCain could pay a political price on Election Day. But if the Iraqis decide they want to go it on their own with the Americans gone, McCain would have no Iraq policy left. Sure, he could claim the surge worked and try to claim credit. But voters, as the cliche goes, tend not to reward presidential candidates for past actions; elections, the consultants keep reminding us, are about the future. Americans don't want other Iraqs in the future. And without Iraq, McCain is merely a sometimes quirky Republican ex-maverick who has yet to learn how to speak convincingly about the number-one issue, the economy. He needs Iraq. But he needs it not too hot and not too cold--and the stove is far beyond his control.

Recent news out of Iraq is bad for John McCain--not the news about military developments there (May was apparently the month with the lowest number of U.S. casualties since the invasion), but the political news. On Friday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared that the talks on a new U.S.-Iraq security pact were deadlocked:

We have reached an impasse because when we opened these negotiations we did not realize that the US demands would so deeply affect Iraqi sovereignty and this is something we can never accept.

The U.S. and Iraqi effort to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement--which is supposed to be hammered out by the end of July--has become increasingly dicey. The Iraqi government, as provincial elections approach, do not want to say yes to the Bush administration demand that U.S. soldiers be afforded the right to jail Iraqis and conduct military operations on their own. Nor do members of Maliki's government and the parliament fancy affording legal immunity to U.S. soldiers and contractors. After all, whose country is it, anyway?

If the talks completely collapse (which is hard to imagine) and no new agreement is reached to replace the expiring U.N. mandate covering the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq, the United States might have to withdraw. Whether the negotiations end in total failure or they produce an unsatisfactory-to-both-sides compromise, McCain could find himself in great political trouble.

Winning the Iraq war is the paramount issue of his presidential bid. But what if there is no war to win because the Iraqis either tell the United States to go home or won't allow it to conduct significant operations within Iraq? What if the Iraqis signal that maintaining a high level of U.S. troops in Iraq is not that important to them? How could McCain then continue to attack Barack Obama as a defeatist cut-and-runner who would imperil the United States by yanking troops out of Iraq? The war rug would be pulled out from under McCain.

I explain this more here. But the main point is that McCain's pro-war stance--as much as it is out of sync with popular opinion--could be further undermined if the government that he claims needs major U.S. military assistance says it would prefer, given the strings attached, to do without. McCain's presidential campaign is being held hostage by Iraqi negotiators.