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Maliki has become something of a scapegoat for those looking for someone to blame for the current situation in Iraq. And finding someone else to blame is certainly much easier and more fun than trying to actually come up with a policy to deal with the situation.
Maliki certainly deserves his share of blame, but ask yourself what you would have done if you were in his shoes. Of what value was a status-of-forces agreement with a country whose leadership had made abundantly clear how much it just wanted you and your little country to go away?
I've been making this point for a decade now. Every politician in Iraq, especially the Shi'ite ones, knew that at some point the US would grow weary of war, and once that happened, the US could simply up and leave, victoriously or not. But Iran will always border Iraq, so if you want to survive long-term, you had better figure out some way to deal with or accommodate to Iran. Given a choice of which horse to back, do you really go with the prancing pony that is Obama?
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