So we'll see. It's quite a mess we've created over there, and this is only the first step on the long road back to anything approaching normal:

BAGHDAD, June 30 -- This is no longer America's war.

Iraqis danced in the streets and set off fireworks Monday in impromptu celebrations of a pivotal moment in their nation's troubled history: Six years and three months after the March 2003 invasion, the United States on Tuesday is withdrawing its remaining combat troops from Iraq's cities and turning over security to Iraqi police and soldiers.

While more than 130,000 U.S. troops remain in the country, patrols by heavily armed soldiers in hulking vehicles as of Wednesday will largely disappear from Baghdad, Mosul and Iraq's other urban centers.

"The Army of the U.S. is out of my country," said Ibrahim Algurabi, 34, a dual U.S.-Iraqi citizen now living in Arizona who attended a concert of celebration in Baghdad's Zawra Park. "People are ready for this change. There are a lot of opportunities to rebuild our country, to forget the past and think about the future."

On Monday, as the withdrawal deadline loomed, four U.S. troops were killed in the Iraqi capital, the military announced Tuesday. No details about the deaths were provided. Another soldier was killed Sunday in a separate attack.

Some American troops have expressed concern about becoming more exposed after the withdrawal, because Iraqis will have unprecedented authority over U.S. military operations. U.S. commanders have said they were bracing for an uptick of attacks from extremist groups during the transition period, which occur almost daily, and will rely heavily on Iraq's security forces for protection in the months ahead.

The withdrawal has also created enormous fear and uncertainty among many Iraqis, who believe that the U.S. military pullback will open the door for insurgents to increase their attacks. On Monday, some normally congested streets were virtually deserted after dark, as Iraqis appeared to heed warnings of impending attacks by insurgents. But city streets were also largely empty of Humvees and U.S. troops.

Those Iraqis who ventured out were in the mood to party, celebrating a moment that the Iraqi government has said represents its return to full sovereignty.

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On Fox News Sunday Nov. 30, 2008. Chris Wallace talks to Lindsey Graham and Clair McCaskill about the pick of Robert Gates to continue as Secretary of Defense. First up is Lindsey Graham and after expressing his approval of the pick of Gates and the others on Obama's future National Security team and managing to put in one more plug for how well the surge supposedly has worked in Iraq, Graham plays concern troll for Obama and says he hopes he listens to Gen. Petraeus. I'm sorry but I thought Gen. Petraeus said that he would follow the orders of the new President and not the other way around. But then Petraeus is one of those very "serious" people that the GOP has practically anointed to sainthood, so why should we expect anything different from Graham?

Wallace moves on to Clair McCaskill and wants to know why even though McCaskill was critical of Gates that he is now the right man to pull our forces out of Iraq. McCaskill reminds Wallace that an important part of the SOFA agreement is that it embraces the kind of time table that Barack Obama made a foundation of his campaign. She tells Wallace that at least Gates is no ideologue and that Obama wants the best and the brightest for his Cabinet and not just those that supported him.

Then Wallace throws out this doozie:

Sen. McCaskill, are you concerned about the fact and yes the Status of Forces Agreement says that all the troops have to be out by 2011, but Mr. Obama's time table is much quicker than that, it's the middle of 2010 and he wants a firm deadline for pulling them out. Bob Gates has talked about doing it based on conditions. Are you satisfied that Secretary Gates will follow Barack Obama's orders?

How utterly ridiculous. Can anyone imagine the Villagers asking this of a Republican President-elect? Of John McCain had he won? Of Bush? After McCaskill responds that of course Gates will follow orders Wallace asks Graham the same question and they blather on about whether Obama will listen to Gates or Petraeus and Wallace asks if the pick of Gates means that Obama might modify his time line.

Chris Wallace, no one knows what Obama is going to do once he takes office but the one thing we know he won't be doing is taking orders from Bob Gates or David Petraeus, or skipping out like our current Commander in Chief and letting his Vice-President run a shadow Presidency while he clears brush at the ranch.

(h/t Think Progress)

He's at it again. Backtracking from his promise in 2007 that he'd call for no more "Friedman Units", Mr. "The World is Flat" suggests that Obama's stated timeline-- one that is advocated by the Iraq government -- for withdrawal from Iraq would be improved by another Friedman Unit to "win" the war.

I think everything that we believe — there was a great piece in The Washington Post today by Bill Emmott, former editor of The Economist who was basically sort of examining all the sort of conventional wisdom about what will happen next, you know that America will become weaker, not stronger and what not. And I think he was on to something. I think everything we believe could be wrong. That is Iraq could turn out — that Osama — sorry, not searching for Osama bin Laden could be not the biggest issue for Obama. I think you could actually find out that Obama can win the Iraq war and he will want to actually continue our presence in Iraq for — until 2011.

When host George Stephanopoulos points out that even Gen. Petraeus admits that there is no "victory" in Iraq, Friedman back pedals slightly, but still stubbornly holds on to the notion that there is something achievable by our continuing presence in Iraq.

  We already knew that the Maliki "clarification" came only after pressure from the White House & CENTCOM, and that that "clarification" largely just reaffirmed his point that Obama's time frame is more in line with the views of the Iraqi government. We also already knew that the original translation was done by Maliki's official translator, not Der Spiegel. Well, now TNR is reporting that Maliki's office personally reviewed the translation and signed off on it.

But it turns out that Maliki actually got a copy of the interview before it was printed and had the option to make any changes. A writer at Der Spiegel sent us this tidbit of info: 

The reason the magazine scores so many high level interviews is that the editors agree to allow the subjects to "authorize" the interviews before they go to press. It wasn't just a slip of the tongue, in other words: Maliki not only endorsed Obama's plans for withdrawing from Iraq, but his office then explicitly approved the endorsement before it was printed. The denials, then, were doubly facetious. Spiegel couldn't say so, though, without revealing its embarrassing authorization policy.

We can all debate Der Spiegel's policy of allowing it's subjects to "authorize" what gets published, but the fact that Maliki enorsed Obama's position is now, unequivocally, beyond dispute.

Just so we're clear, the sovereign government of Iraq explicitly embraces the idea of withdrawing US troops by the end of 2010 -- directly in line with the plan put forth by the so-called "unexperienced" Barack Obama. The only conclusion that can be drawn from the entire episode, besides that Maliki wants US forces out of his country, is that George Bush and John McCain want the opposite, despite any rhetoric to the contrary. It's hard to overstate how monumental a game-changer this all is, but Matthew Yglesias does a pretty good job of summing it up.

[McCain had] spent, several weeks with the main theme of his campaign being, quite literally, to criticize Barack Obama for not having been physically present in Iraq recently. This (of course) got Obama to go to Iraq, thus setting up a dilemma. Either Obama would survey the "progress" in Iraq and change his position, thus making him a flip-flopper, or else he would refuse to change his position, thus making him obstinate and out of touch with reality.

But instead of either of those things happening, Obama went to Iraq and Iraqi leaders said he'd been right all along! That's about as close to "game, set, match" as you get in terms of real world events influencing your political campaign. What's more, given the domestic situation and John McCain's inability to talk about domestic issues persuasively, he can't afford to play for a draw on Iraq.