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Petraeus is arming the Iraqi Sunnis. Maliki sees this as the US siding with the Saudis and other gulf allies and as an interference in his ability to control Iraq and to cow the his domestic Sunni enemies (who are largely though not exclusively responsible for the ongoing terrorism).

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.

"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.

But, Iraq is not a dictatorship. Do most Shia agree with him, or are they more secular and given to some form of reconciliation without civil war? (which the people in the streets (not the Green Zone) have had a nasty taste of). Which maybe prompted Bush to say:

Mr Bush said the people of Iraq had made a great step towards reconciliation.

If the government doesn’t respond to the demands of the people, they will replace the government.