This Maliki might be a looser, but he is right telling Hillary and Levin to butt out. They aren't running the administration, Bush is.
But that’s not the point.
We paid in blood and treasure to have something to day in what goes on there. To say that “They did not ask us to be there. We have no right to tell them how to run their government.” is dead wrong.
Japan didn’t “ask us to be there either” and we did tell them how to run their government. We paid for that right and we’ve paid for it in Iraq as well. We are there and continue to be there precisely because they were/are unable to run their own affairs.
That should have been:
We paid in blood and treasure to have something to say in what goes on there.