Barack obama and John McCain have spent much of the past year quarrelling about when and how the United States should leave Iraq, hoping to sway the minds of millions of American voters. What is sometimes overlooked in this quarrelrnis that Iraq has rather an important vote too.rnThe Bush administration and the Iraqi government have been having a tetchy negotiation in recent months about how long, and under what terms, American forces will be allowed to stay after their United Nations' mandate expires at the endrnof December. Since Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, knows he needs the help of American forces a good while longer, and the Americans know that he knows, the likelihood is that the two sides will come to an agreement. But the talks have gone on longer than expected, so a breakdown is not impossible. That could have very bad consequences.rnThe gap is not huge. The latest leaked draft would "aspire" to have American troops leaving Iraq by the end of 2011. That is later than Mr Obama's preferred date (May 2010) and probably earlier than Mr McCain's (unspecified), but the date itself is not as big an issue as it seems.
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