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Hardly a day passes without Mr. Maliki mocking the White House’s professed faith in him. In the past week or so alone, he has presided over a second botched hanging (despite delaying it for more than two weeks to put in place new guidelines), charged Condi Rice with giving a “morale boost to the terrorists” because she criticized him, and overruled American objections to appoint an obscure commander from deep in Shiite territory to run the Baghdad “surge.” His government doesn’t even try to hide its greater allegiance to Iran. Mr. Maliki’s foreign minister has asked for the release of the five Iranians detained in an American raid on an Iranian office in northern Iraq this month and, on Monday, called for setting up more Iranian “consulates” in Iraq.
The president’s pretense that Mr. Maliki and his inept, ill-equipped, militia-infiltrated security forces can advance American interests in this war is Neville Chamberlain-like in its naiveté and disingenuousness. An American military official in Baghdad read the writing on the wall to The Times last week: “We are implementing a strategy to embolden a government that is actually part of the problem. We are being played like a pawn.”
-- Frank Rich for The New York Times
I have been meaning to get something down on the Maliki government and what a (possibly treacherous) vulnerable point he is in American aspirations for the region. I also recall a quote of his that he made in the last couple of weeks in response to the increased pressure from the Bush Administration: "What we need is more weapons, not advice from this Administration." I couldn't help but wonder how many of those weapons would wind up in the hands of the Iranian-backed shiite militias, to be used not only against Sunnis but Amreican troops as well.
But this is Bush's game, as he goes his own way in the face of all the criticism. God, I really hope he has some happy surprises for us, and he is not just buying a couple of years so that he can say that defeat did not fall on his watch.
xXx
Hardly a day passes without Mr. Maliki mocking the White House’s professed faith in him. In the past week or so alone, he has presided over a second botched hanging (despite delaying it for more than two weeks to put in place new guidelines), charged Condi Rice with giving a “morale boost to the terrorists” because she criticized him, and overruled American objections to appoint an obscure commander from deep in Shiite territory to run the Baghdad “surge.” His government doesn’t even try to hide its greater allegiance to Iran. Mr. Maliki’s foreign minister has asked for the release of the five Iranians detained in an American raid on an Iranian office in northern Iraq this month and, on Monday, called for setting up more Iranian “consulates” in Iraq.
The president’s pretense that Mr. Maliki and his inept, ill-equipped, militia-infiltrated security forces can advance American interests in this war is Neville Chamberlain-like in its naiveté and disingenuousness. An American military official in Baghdad read the writing on the wall to The Times last week: “We are implementing a strategy to embolden a government that is actually part of the problem. We are being played like a pawn.”
-- Frank Rich for The New York Times
I have been meaning to get something down on the Maliki government and what a (possibly treacherous) vulnerable point he is in American aspirations for the region. I also recall a quote of his that he made in the last couple of weeks in response to the increased pressure from the Bush Administration: "What we need is more weapons, not advice from this Administration." I couldn't help but wonder how many of those weapons would wind up in the hands of the Iranian-backed shiite militias, to be used not only against Sunnis but Amreican troops as well.
But this is Bush's game, as he goes his own way in the face of all the criticism. God, I really hope he has some happy surprises for us, and he is not just buying a couple of years so that he can say that defeat did not fall on his watch.
