What...is he thinking?
Oh, I don’t know, cutting off his hand to spite his face; stabbing his friends in the back; burning his bridges?
..”Those who make such statements are bothered by our visit to Syria. We will pay no attention. We care for our people and our constitution and can find friends elsewhere,” Mr. al-Maliki said. -That strikes me as completely over the top. The implication is that the US does not care for Iraq or it’s constitution.
No the implication is that those that were helped into power had just as much opinion of US views as the previous leader there. Congratulations, we've done all the work for a coup and the other guys didn't have to lift a finger
Maybe Levin was trying to incite Iraqi nationalism.
When was the last time a war went according to a timetable? Demanding one was dumb to the nth power.
Iraq will be a sovereign nation even if it does sadden Harry Reid and his comrades.
Well, good. I always thought the idea of governments having friends as kind of weird anyway. And the United States is going provide security and pump millions of tax dollars into your country to fix the infrastructure whether you like it or not!
Dead man walking.
When the Iraq gov’t appears to be in control of their own country, then he can talk. Right now the USA is attempting to establish control and he can leave that amateur psychology to the islamists.
At some point in the future he will have to deal with Syria without a US presence in his country to back him up. Nancy Pelosi has her timetable, Maliki has his.
Anyone care to start an al-Maliki pool?
I’d bet he won’t last out the month.
Maliki's power rests on the Iraqi Shia, and on balancing their pro-Iranian and pro-democracy factions.
He is signaling to Petraeus and the US that he, Maliki, is perfectly willing to side with Iran and its allies, if the US will not side with him, against the Iraqi Sunnis.
As far as Maliki is concerned, neither Iran nor Syria are enemies he cannot afford to associate with. Instead, the internal Iraqi Sunnis who have been murdering his people for a generation, are the enemy he cannot and will not associate with.
If the US makes him choose between making peace with the Sunnis as a condition for continued alliance with the US, or tossing the US and siding with Iran, in order to continue his war against the Iraqi Sunnis, he will pick Iran and war.
Because he simply will not, under any pressure, forgive the Sunnis for what they have done and are doing to his people and to Iraq. The US cannot make him do so. He can find allies against the Iraqi Sunnis, if we aren't willing to be those allies. If it means making the new Iraq pro-Iranian instead of pro-US, so be it.
He figures we are leaving soon anyway, and the real war for control of Iraq will start when we are gone. He intends to win that war and for Shia to rule Iraq when it is done. Whatever foreign allies he needs to bring that about, he will court. The US isn't offering, Iran is.
Yesterday Maliki was a good guy here, now he’s a bad guy again.
“What...is he thinking?”
He is openly expressing that he believes the terrorists of Syria are better friends than the US. And if the US doesn’t like it, they can shove it.
He sure has gotten cozy with Iran and Syria lately. He's going to find out that he has gotten too big for his britches.
Toast...
Another Baghdad Bob.
Showing his true colors.