{"id":9193,"date":"2006-11-29T15:00:52","date_gmt":"2006-11-29T20:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/9193.html"},"modified":"2006-11-29T15:00:52","modified_gmt":"2006-11-29T20:00:52","slug":"sadr-maliki-and-powell-oh-my","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/sadr-maliki-and-powell-oh-my\/","title":{"rendered":"Sadr, Maliki, and Powell … oh my"},"content":{"rendered":"

And here I thought Iraq couldn’t get any less stable. It can<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A bloc of Iraqi lawmakers and cabinet ministers allied with militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr launched a boycott of their government duties Wednesday to protest Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s decision to attend a summit in Jordan with President Bush.<\/p>\n

“We announce the suspension of our participation in government and parliament,” said Nasar al-Rubaie, the leader of Sadr’s parliamentary bloc. “We gave a promise last Friday that we will suspend our participation if the Prime Minister met with Bush and today [Wednesday] we are doing it as a Sadrist bloc.”<\/p>\n

In an earlier statement, the 30 lawmakers and five cabinet ministers loyal to Sadr said their action was necessary because the Amman summit constituted a “provocation to the feelings of the Iraqi people and a violation of their constitutional rights.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Two quick points: one, al-Rubaie said al-Sadr loyalists were not officially pulling out of the government, which would all but guarantee the collapse of Iraq’s unity government, but have instead “suspended” their participation in the government. Presumably, they could come back, though it’s not entirely clear what they might request in return.<\/p>\n

And two, if Maliki’s meeting with the president was the problem, al-Sadr loyalists might as well have waited a bit before launching their boycott — Bush and Maliki did not meet<\/a> today. (thanks to G.D. for the tip)
\n<\/p>\n

President Bush’s high-stakes summit with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was put off Wednesday after public disclosure of U.S. doubts about his capacity to control sectarian warfare. The White House said the two leaders would meet on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The postponement was announced shortly after Bush arrived here for talks with Jordan’s King Abdullah II and al-Maliki. Bush’s meeting with the king was to proceed on schedule.<\/p>\n

White House counselor Dan Bartlett denied that the move was a snub by al-Maliki or was related to the leak of a White House memo questioning the prime minister’s capacity for controlling violence in Iraq.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And since the White House is always forthcoming in explaining unexpected Middle Eastern developments, I’m sure everyone will take Bartlett at this word. Well, almost everyone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As for the Bush gang’s political pushback against the “civil war” label, Colin Powell entered the fray<\/a> today. Not surprisingly, he didn’t back the White House.<\/p>\n

Speaking with CNN reporter Hala Gorani in Dubai today, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said Iraq’s violence meets the standard of a civil war and thinks President Bush needs to acknowledge that. According to Gorani’s report, Powell said if he were heading the State Department right now, he would recommend that the Bush administration adopt that language “in order to come to terms with the reality on the ground.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m delighted that Powell has the courage of his convictions. If he’d had them four years ago, Powell might have been able to make a difference.<\/p>\n

As for Iraq’s neighbors, Iran continues to fill the leadership vacuum<\/a> in ways that won’t make the White House at all happy.<\/p>\n

It’s just another day in the Mess O\u2019 Potamia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And here I thought Iraq couldn’t get any less stable. It can. A bloc of Iraqi lawmakers and cabinet ministers allied with militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr launched a boycott of their government duties Wednesday to protest Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s decision to attend a summit in Jordan with President Bush. “We announce the suspension of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}