Listen to the prime minister of Iraq, Nuri al-Maliki. In the Times of London, he strongly expresses a clear desire: to be given weapons and more training in order to unleash Shiite state violence against Sunni insurgents. His view of the next six months seems pretty obvious to me: the U.S. can help weed out Sunni insurgents in Baghdad, and he is prepared to make a few gestures against the more egregious death squads on his side. But after six months, he wants to be able to get on with the job of killing Sunni insurgents himself in defense of a Shia majority state:
Asked how long Iraq would require US troops, Mr al-Maliki said: "If we succeed in implementing the agreement between us to speed up the equipping and providing weapons to our military forces, I think that within three to six months our need for American troops will dramatically go down. That is on condition that there are real, strong efforts to support our military forces and equipping and arming them." …
Robert Gates, the new US Defence Secretary, said that Mr al-Maliki could lose his job if he failed to stop communal bloodshed and Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, gave a warning that he was living on "borrowed time" and that American patience was running out.
Challenged on the point, Mr al-Maliki remarked acidly: "Certain officials are going through a crisis. Secretary Rice is expressing her own point of view if she thinks that the Government is on borrowed time, whether it is borrowed time for the Iraqi Government or American Administration. I don’t think we are on borrowed time."
How exactly would Maliki "lose his job"? The administration’s political strategy in Iraq is based on control it doesn’t exercize. And its military policy is based on a national government that does not exist. Apart from that, the White House has it all figured out.
(Photo: Brooks Kraft for Time.)
The Dish 