So now it's a "time horizon"

Apparently President Bush couldn't get the word "timetable" out of his mouth, having equated timetables with defeat for so long, but with a good deal prodding from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, he managed a phrase with the word "time" in it. Here's the Register's editorial on the subject, written a bit ago and updated to include the Bush mention. Bottom line? Conditions seem ripe to begin an orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. The Iraqi government is acting more and more like a sovereign government, with Maliki even coming close to endorsing Obama (or at least his plan), and while a good bit of the apparent reconciliation may be a facade, it's the facade the U.S. always claimed it was looking for. So give Iraq back to the Iraqis and let them make their own mess of it, if that's what happens. At least it will be their own mess.