With little coverage in the US press, outgoing lame-duck-in-chief Bush has just basically surrendered in Iraq, and the only question is whether the thing that can be seen waving is a white flag or Bush’s tail between his legs. You would think that with all the noise during the presidential campaign about the need for “victory” in Iraq, that someone would notice. But no.

The Bush administration has negotiated an agreement with the government of Iraq that sets a firm timetable for the US withdrawal from Iraq — something that Bush repeatedly and vigorously vowed that he would never do, claiming that such an timetable would endanger the US and its troops. According to Peter Galbraith, a top Iran expert and former ambassador to Croatia:

The agreement represents a stunning and humiliating reversal of course by the Bush administration, which had vehemently opposed any timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

The agreement mandates that US combat forces withdraw from urban areas by the end of this coming June (a scarce seven months from now), and withdraw completely from Iraq by the end of December 2011. The agreement bars permanent American bases in Iraq, leaves a government in charge of Iraq that is decidedly pro-Iranian, something else about which Bush warned about repeatedly.

And finally, nobody noticed that Bush didn’t bother to visit the troops in Iraq for the Thanksgiving and serve them turkey.