I find this blaming of Maliki for Sunni-Shia divisions misplaced and dangerous. Yes, I'm sorry we bugged out in 2011, but we won't make things better by undermining the lawfully selected prime minister. Should we back Maliki? No. Support the office. Should we oppose Maliki and hope/work for his ouster? No. Support the process for changing prime ministers.
And remember the difficult position Maliki is in without our presence.
Let's accept who Iraqis chose to lead them and work with him. And work with the system that selected Maliki to make it better. If we undermine Maliki and even inadvertently promote a coup by factions who believe they have our backing, we make Iraq much worse:
And most important, remember that Maliki is a leader waging a war against jihadis, Baathists, Sunni Arab superiority complex, Shia death squads, Iranian meddling, Kurdish separatists, Shias who want revenge on the Sunni Arabs for decades of oppression and an awareness of centuries of oppression before that, and old fashioned corruption. So no, he isn't going to govern like Iraq is at peace. He can't.
Sectarian war dragging on and escalating in Syria isn't helping, either.
And if we prompt a coup, we will own Iraq while crippling the Iraqi military and still-weak institutions of government. Raise your hand if you want to recommit 150,000 American troops to Iraq to fight round two?
I quoted an earlier post on our past handling of South Vietnam's Diem:
I don't blame Maliki for trying to root out Baathists. Too many aren't really former Baathists and believe Sunni Arabs should rule Iraq as they have for centuries. Iraq is at war and I can't forget that Americans kept pressing South Vietnamese President Diem to be more inclusive despite being at war. We got rid of him thinking Diem was the problem and too late realized that he was actually winning the war until we supported his removal in a coup. Let's not make the mistake of thinking one man is the difference between victory or defeat--or if it is that we know who that one man is. Focus on strengthening rule of law in Iraq. I hope one day we'll see a peaceful transfer of power from the losing incumbent to the winning opponent and it won't seem strange at all.
The fact is, a number of Sunni Arab politicians do have blood on their hands either actively or by looking the other way (out of fear perhaps, but still looking away). So while we commit the CIA to help fight terrorists in Iraq, we also need to urge Maliki to confront Shia terrorists as much as Sunni Arab terrorists, and we need to work on the Sunni Arabs to re-awaken and work with the government to take on actual Sunni Arab terrorists.
Perhaps we need to "guarantee" the behavior of leaders from the Kurdish, Sunni Arab, and Shia factions to work together and commit to defeating and de-legitimizing any leader who promotes violence (or looks the other way) while we enable talks to resolve differences.
Prime Minister Maliki can govern if he has the tools. Maliki stood up to the Sadrists in spring 2008, remember. His failings are from weakness. In what world is weakening an imperfect Iraqi government an improvement?
UPDATE: Aside from advancing our interests, we did do a good thing by eliminating the Saddam regime, remember. Tip to Instapundit.
