The White House on Monday took new diplomatic steps to force Iraq’s prime minister from power as it looked for ways to stop fighters with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) from gaining a deeper foothold in the country.
This is Grade A stupid. Let Iraqis choose their leader under their laws. We should not be choosing Iraq's leader--or even just looking like we are.
This is unwise.
UPDATE: You don't have to be a fan of Maliki--who has obviously failed--to be wary of pinning the blame for Iraq's problems on Maliki.
Yet a desire to fire a failed leader should not lead us to push Iraq to violate their laws to do what we want.
Really, doesn't Prime Minister Maliki have as much right to insist we get rid of President Obama for his failures despite our laws that give him a term of office that ends in January 2017?
UPDATE: Maliki won't fight his replacement:
Maliki ended eight years of often divisive, sectarian rule and endorsed fellow Shi'ite Haider al-Abadi in a televised speech during which he stood next to his successor. Earlier, a leading figure in the Sunni minority told Reuters he had been promised U.S. help to fight the Islamic State militants.
That's good--or less bad, anyway. A Shia civil war amidst the current problems would be very bad. Yet I'm uncomfortable with the amount of effort we made to choose a winner in Iraqi politics. I worry this will bite us in the butt.
I'd feel better if I read a legal analysis of whether this went along with Iraq's constitutional provisions for selecting the prime minister.
And there may be an Anbar Sunni Arab Re-Awakening after 8 months of jihadi rule in parts of Anbar. That's good, period.
