IRAN - Russia Urges Exit.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Aug. 18 said it was vital to draw up a timetable for withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq to encourage insurgents to take part in creating their state. It is not yet clear whether this reflects a new turn in Russia's geo-strategic policies or is a mere tactic. But Putin's call does fall in line with demands by Iran, Syria and other neighbours of Iraq for the foreign forces to leave the country.

After meeting Jordan's King Abdullah in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Putin said: "Many Iraqis still see them as occupiers. This is simply the reality. Resolving this task will enable a significant part of the armed Iraqi resistance to be brought into the process of creating a state". So much for Bush's Greater Middle East (GME) democratisation project.

US Lowers Iraq Expectations: Lebanese intellectual and former minister Ghassan Salameh, who served as adviser to the UN mission in Baghdad, had warned before the US handed over sovereignty to the Iraqis in 2004 that Iraq could either emerge as a democratic ally of the US or break down into chaos. His warning had followed predictions by US neo-conservatives (neo-cons) that much of the GME could break down into almost 100 statelets based on sect or ethnicity - all around a super-Israel backed by an America disengaged from this region.

After setting out to establish a democracy, Washington has slowly realised that an Islamic republic is taking shape in Iraq. It is, therefore, significantly lowering expectations about what it can achieve in Iraq. According to The Washington Post of Aug. 13, it is finally admitting that its pre-war plans were "unrealistic".

The US no longer expects a model democracy, a self-supporting oil industry, or a society in which the majority of Iraqis are free from serious security or economic challenges. In an analysis for the Post on Aug. 12, Peter Baker wrote: "Administration officials have given up all hope of militarily defeating the insurgents with US forces, instead aiming only to train and equip enough Iraqi security forces to take over the fight themselves". While the Post said the White House felt it had accomplished a great deal in Iraq, Senator Joseph Biden (D) of Delaware on Aug. 14 accused the Bush administration of trying to lower expectations as part of an exit strategy. "They have squandered about every opportunity to get it right", Sen. Biden told NBC's "Meet the Press".

Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona told the same NBC programme that any talk of a significant US troop withdrawal from Iraq was premature, adding: "The day that I can land at the airport in Baghdad and ride in an unarmed car down the highway to the Green Zone is the day that I'll start considering withdrawals from Iraq" - referring to the heavily fortified area where US and Iraqi government HQ are located. "We not only don't need to withdraw, we need more troops there", McCain said on Fox News Sunday. But Sen. Richard Lugar (R) of Indiana, head of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, on Aug. 14 told CNN that, even while there were not enough US troops in Iraq to keep insurgents out, it was extremely unlikely that more soldiers would be sent there, adding: "We have to train the Iraqis faster and harder".

John Farmer, the national political correspondent of the Newark Star-Ledger, wrote in an opinion piece on Aug. 15 that the White House's decision to lower expectations in Iraq and float talk of troops withdrawal had more to do with the 2006 mid-term elections in the US than the reality of the situation on the ground in Iraq. A clear GOP defeat next year would constitute a repudiation of Bush's Iraq policy.

Congressional Republicans, especially in the House, have seen the polls and fear they will get caught in any backlash against the war. Cindy Sheehan, the Gold Star mother camping outside the ranch in Crawford to protest the war while Bush hides within, is their worst nightmare. The word in Washington is that the same House Republicans who only yesterday were the war's main cheerleaders are now said to be pressuring Bush to throw them a rope - something which can pass for an exit strategy or, failing that, a commitment to bring at least some of the US troops home before the 2006 elections.

Kevin Hassett, head of economic policy studies at the neo-con American Enterprise Institute, writes in an opinion piece for Bloomberg News that public pessimism about Iraq is having another effect - "depressing optimism about the positive news" on the US economy.