Newsweek has a draft copy of the national reconciliation plan that will be presented today by Iraq’s new Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki. It asks for a firm U.S. withdrawal plan to be enforced by a United Nations resolution:

The plan also calls for a withdrawal timetable for coalition forces from Iraq, but it doesn’t specify an actual date — one of the Sunnis’ key demands. It calls for “the necessity of agreeing on a timetable under conditions that take into account the formation of Iraqi armed forces so as to guarantee Iraq’s security,” and asks that a U.N. Security Council decree confirm the timetable. Mahmoud Othman, a National Assembly member who is close to President Talabani, said that no one disagrees with the concept of a broad, conditions-based timetable.

….[A] senior coalition military official, who agreed to discuss this subject with Newsweek and The Times of London on the condition of anonymity, notably did not outright rule out the idea of a date. “One of the advantages of a timetable — all of a sudden there is a date which is a much more explicit thing than an abstract condition,” he said. “That’s the sort of assurance that [the Sunnis] are looking for.”

It also makes a distinction between terror groups and insurgents “in response to Sunni politicians’ demands that the “national resistance” should not be punished for what they see as legitimate self-defense in attacks against a foreign occupying power.”

Maliki has made reconciliation and control of party militias the main emphasis of his new government. This plan follows a series of secret negotiations over the past two months between seven insurgent groups, President Jalal Talabani and officials of the U.S. embassy. The insurgent groups involved are Sunnis but do not include foreign jihadis like al Qaeda and other terrorist factions who deliberately target civilians; those groups have always denounced any negotiations.

The distinction between insurgents and terrorists is one of the key principles in the document, and is in response to Sunni politicians’ demands that the “national resistance” should not be punished for what they see as legitimate self-defense in attacks against a foreign occupying power. Principle No. 19 calls for “Recognizing the legitimacy of the national resistance and differentiating or separating it from terrorism” while “encouraging the national resistance to enroll in the political process and recognizing the necessity of the participation of the national resistance in the national reconciliation dialogue.”

Let’s recap: the majority of the American people want to set a timetable for troop withdrawl, the top American commander in Iraq has drafted a plan to cut trooops starting in September, and the Iraqis are debating a plan asking for a firm U.S. withdrawl plan.

I happily call this a tipping point. But how will the Republican leadership and the Bush administration spin these latest events after two solid weeks of demonizing John Murtha and John Kerry and accusing Democrats of cowardly ‘cutting and running’ because they proposed setting a date for troop withdrawl? They clearly have some ’splainin to do.

This post was written by Mary Mancini