Juan Cole on What Maliki Wants from Bush

Today Juan Cole helps us understand some of the details often left out of criticism of al Maliki's performance: "Al-Maliki has been pressing Washington for some time to give him the authority to order much bigger battle units into action without securing permission first from the US military. The PM has been frustrated that he isn't allowed to set security policy but then is blamed for not achieving security." Hmmmm. That's typical of nearly all our performance in Iraq: we jealously guard the power but criticize them if things go wrong; and scapegoating the Iraqis has recently become the US power elite's favorite tune.