On Schedule

Marc Lynch puts the new Iraq election law in context:

[T]he deal getting done is clearly good news -- and demonstrates that overall Obama's Iraqi strategy is going well even if it doesn't get much attention. The election law deal has obvious implications for Obama's commitment to withdraw combat forces. The American withdrawal timeline was long ago pegged to the elections, with force levels kept relatively high in order to provide for security during the elections and in the immediate aftermath. If the elections had been postponed, it would have posed a major problem for the withdrawal planning. So from that narrow perspective, getting the elections done in January under any laws was really important - and Obama today affirmed that the deal keeps the withdrawal on schedule. Getting a law which seems to include most of what the U.S. wanted substantively is a bonus.