You can parse this in such a way that it’s not totally ironclad, but Ben Rhodes, one of President Obama’s most senior advisers, told me that there’s not going to be a renegotiation of the Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq to keep U.S. troops there beyond 2011. Even if the Iraqis decide that their national pride isn’t such a big deal, Obama would still have to choose to re-escalate, a perilous decision that would strain the military immensely and come at enormous strategic (and political) risk. Basically, you have to get to a baroque set of conditions before reneging on the 2011 pullout — set by a binding diplomatic accord –  begins to be imaginable. You can imagine a rather small contingent of either diplomatic security or small logistics advisory force (since the Iraqis buy a lot of our military equipment) but nothing like the permanent bases with tens of thousands of garrisoned forces that I reported on in 2006.

War in Iraq: March 19, 2003 to December 31, 2010. It never should have been a day.

By the way, Siun was on the same conference call with Rhodes that I was on, so she may have some more…