…at least if this New York Times story is right:

The Bush administration is drafting a timetable for the Iraqi government to address sectarian divisions and assume a larger role in securing the country, senior American officials said.
Details of the blueprint, which is to be presented to Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki before the end of the year and would be carried out over the next year and beyond, are still being devised. But the officials said that for the first time Iraq was likely to be asked to agree to a schedule of specific milestones, like disarming sectarian militias, and to a broad set of other political, economic and military benchmarks intended to stabilize the country.
Although the plan would not threaten Mr. Maliki with a withdrawal of American troops, several officials said the Bush administration would consider changes in military strategy and other penalties if Iraq balked at adopting it or failed to meet critical benchmarks within it.

It is certainly worth trying. What kept the political process in the three years after the invasion was a series of deadlines that we held the Iraqis to very strictly. NR endorsed the general idea of deadlines the other day in here. Patience with Maliki is clearly wearing thin: Frustration is growing among senior American military officers and civilian officials in Iraq and at the Pentagon with Mr. Maliki for his failure to move decisively against Shiite militias and on a wide range of other fronts. Even the implied threat that the administration would reassess its presence in Iraq may not be enough, senior officials said. If I could return to the point I tried to make here, it doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense to wait to make–or at least to annouce in a high-profile way–the sort of adjustments in Iraq policy that the public is looking for until after the election. Why take a beating for “staying the course,” when that’s not what you’re doing? A major presidential statement of a new general policy direction now just might take some of the edge off the public discontent and limit Republican losses–which would obviously leave Bush in a stronger position after November.