Via Hilzoy over at Sullivan’s place, Spencer Ackerman notes how Maliki has McCain boxed into a corner:

 ”There’s nowhere left for McCain to go here. Either he endorses a timetable for withdrawal, which he has consistently said would be a disaster, and cedes his only big issue to Obama — and more importantly, concedes that Obama’s judgment is sound — or he deliberately ignores the concerted, expressed wishes of the Iraqi government in order to prolong an unpopular war.”

But, notes Hilzoy, McCain himself came up with a third way, asserting that whatever the Iraqi government wants, we’ll leave when we’re good and ready:

That’s right: by simply asserting that he knows what the Iraqi government wants better than they do, and that we should trust his take on what they think over theirs, McCain can avoid the need to respond at all. It’s a pity that this strategy requires that he look like a complete idiot, and adopt an insulting attitude towards the Iraqi government and its people that would surely not serve him well were he elected President, but them’s the breaks.