Demobilization

Bolstered by recent Iraqi military successes, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki proposed Monday that negotiators include a timetable for the departure of U.S. troops in any agreement to continue the American presence in Iraq beyond the end of the year. The suggestion, made during an official visit to the United Arab Emirates, appeared aimed at easing domestic fears that the deal would impinge on Iraqi sovereignty and clear the way for permanent American bases. The Iraqi leader also recognizes that American opinion has turned against the war and believes his country should not wait for a decision to be made in Washington to pull out troops, according to lawmakers from his Islamic Dawa Party.

President Bush has agreed to a "general time horizon" for withdrawals of U.S. combat troops from Iraq, the White House announced Friday in a marked softening of his long-standing opposition to deadlines for reducing the American presence. Administration officials portrayed the shift, which was announced a day after a video conference between Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, as an evolution in policy rather than a fundamental change.

As Sen. Barack Obama headed to Iraq for his first visit as a presidential candidate, his plan for bringing the war to a swift conclusion was triggering a political furor abroad and at home, with a U.S. military leader declaring Sunday that setting a hard deadline for withdrawing troops is risky. Obama arrived today in Baghdad, where he is scheduled to meet with Iraqi political leaders who were scrambling over the weekend to clarify an apparent endorsement of his proposal to pull U.S. forces out of Iraq in 16 months.

The departure this month of the last of the 28,500 extra troops sent in a U.S. military buildup leaves Iraq in a rickety calm, an in-between space that is not quite war and not quite peace where ethnic and sectarian tensions bubble beneath the surface. Politicians and U.S. officials hail the remarkable turnaround from open civil war that left 3,700 Iraqis dead during the worst month in the fall of 2006, compared with June's toll of 490, according to Pentagon estimates.

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, is being forced to grapple with one of the unexpected byproducts of the conflict in Georgia: His plan to withdraw American forces in Iraq was predicated on all partner nations keeping their troop levels intact. With nearly 2,000 Georgian troops returning home in the midst of the crisis there, the coalition has lost what one senior military official called one of the largest and most capable contributions to the Iraq effort.

Ances Najim hovered anxiously as Iraqi soldiers peered into the trunk of his car and clambered up a wall to see what was stashed in a neighbor's courtyard. When an officer informed him the search was done, the lawyer broke into a wide grin and readily signed a form confirming that nothing was taken from his home. "It's the first time that the Iraqi army has come in here, and nobody hit me, nobody broke anything," Najim, a Sunni Arab, said incredulously.

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus has recommended that President Bush postpone sharp troop cuts in Iraq until next year, delaying a large-scale shift of combat forces to Afghanistan and reflecting concerns that widespread violence could return to Iraq. Under the recommendation, the current level of about 140,000 troops would remain in Iraq through the end of Bush's presidency in January.

Russia will pull its troops out of Georgia proper in one month, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev pledged Monday, but only after international monitors deploy near the breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia agreed to the withdrawal after receiving a security guarantee that Georgia will not attack the Russian-backed republics, said Medvedev, who appeared alongside French President Nicolas Sarkozy after talks in Moscow.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Canada's troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan in 2011, as his minority government looks to win support in national elections next month. Harper, who has been a steadfast ally of President Bush in the post-Sept. 11 fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, said Canadians do not want to keep their soldiers in Afghanistan beyond 10 years.

Hundreds of Russian forces packed up and withdrew from positions Saturday in western Georgia, and a Georgian official said Russia had met a deadline for a partial pullout a month after the war between the two former Soviet republics. Russian soldiers and armored vehicles rolled out of six checkpoints and temporary bases in the Black Sea port of Poti and other areas nearby, Georgian Security Council chief Alexander Lomaia said.