Bold Plans

Despite the fact that combined U.S. and Iraqi forces can't even get control of Baghdad, and despite the fact that it is already late April and violence in that city is returning to pre-"surge" levels, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki says his government will gain control of its entire country by the end of this year.

Maliki is under growing pressure from powerful anti-American Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to set a timetable for the withdrawal of 146,000 U.S. troops from Iraq.

In a speech delivered on his behalf by National Security Adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie at a ceremony marking the handover of southern Maysan province from British forces to Iraqi control, Maliki said three provinces in the autonomous Kurdistan region would follow next.

"Maysan ... will be followed by the three Kurdistan provinces, a month from now," Maliki said.

"After that Kerbala and Wasit (provinces). Then it will be province by province until we achieve (this transfer) before the end of the year."

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, it is highly unlikely that the Maliki government can achieve a monopoly on the use of force in Iraq by the end of this year. Frankly, in that sense, his government is barely a government at all.

But it is equally obvious that internally, the only chance the Iraqi government has of gaining any legitimacy is to throw of the shackle of the U.S. occupation. When we leave, there will continue to be bloodshed, but the civil war will end eventually in a negotiated settlement between the parties. That is how wars end.

Occupations, on the other hand, end when the occupier leaves. The United States is not fighting a war in Iraq. We are engaged in an occupation. As long as the occupation continues, we are the problem. It is only when we end the occupation that Iraq can pursue its destiny.

We are not fighting "terrorists" in Iraq who are going to "follow us home" when we leave. Al Qaeda found us just fine on its own on September 11, 2001. This is not about al Qaeda.

In Iraq, we are fighting Iraqis who want us to get out of their country. We can't kill enough of them to "win" the occupation. We can't wait them out. They live there. They're not going anywhere. All we can do is leave. We should leave.