Informed Speculation

I’ve been quite harsh (brutally so) with Iraq’s Prime Minister, so let me say that I’m glad to see he withstood this pressure and went ahead with the meeting with Bush:

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 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.”

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.”

But Rubaie cautioned that their action did not mean the officials were pulling out of the government, which would all but guarantee the collapse of Iraq’s unity government.

“The suspension does not mean our withdrawal from the political process,” said Rubaie. He added the Sadr bloc would meet in coming days to discuss how long members would remain out of the government.

Disgruntlement with Maliki, meanwhile, has reached the point where it’s openly discussed in official channels:

From troops on the ground to members of Congress, Americans increasingly blame the continuing violence and destruction in Iraq on the people most affected by it: the Iraqis.

Even Democrats who have criticized the Bush administration’s conduct of the occupation say the people and government of Iraq are not doing enough to rebuild their society. The White House is putting pressure on the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and members of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group have debated how much to blame Iraqis for not performing civic duties.

I think a nuance is lost here, though: I don’t blame ’Iraqis’; I blame one particular Iraqi, and that’s the weak Prime Minister… 

UPDATE 1:06 p.m.: Hmmm…perhaps I spoke too soon:

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.

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

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.

“Absolutely not,” Bartlett said.” He said the king and the prime minister had met before Bush arrived from a NATO summit in Latvia. “It negated the purpose for a meeting of the three of them,” Bartlett said.

We’ll be keeping an eye on this story…

UPDATE 1:21 p.m.: More, including the possible impetus for the postponement, a leaked memo (to, where else, the New York Times) by Stephen Hadley:

The White House has avoided saying that Bush will be pressuring al-Maliki at the meeting to do more to stop the bloodshed. National security adviser Stephen Hadley says the Iraqi prime minister pushes himself — and that Bush will be listening to al-Maliki’s ideas, not imposing plans on him.

But in a classified November 8 memo following his October 30 trip to Baghdad, Hadley expressed serious doubts about whether al-Maliki had the capacity to control the sectarian violence in Iraq, and recommended steps to strengthen the Iraqi leader’s position, The New York Times reported in Wednesday editions. (Full story)

“The reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action,” the memo said.

The White House did not dispute the accuracy of the memo, but a senior administration official said the document, taken as a whole, it is an expression of support for al-Maliki. “You have a constant reiteration of the importance of strengthening the Maliki government, the need to work with him, to augment his capabilities,” the official said.

He added that Bush and Maliki have a “personal relationship” that allows them to “talk candidly about the challenges.”

Another official, also speaking anonymously because of the classified nature of the memo, said it was not “a slap in the face, but it’s, ‘How do we grow his capability.’ “

“The president has confidence in Prime Minister Maliki, and also the administration is working with the prime minister to improve his capabilities,” Press Secretary Tony Snow told reporters, adding that Maliki “has been very aggressive in recent weeks in taking on some of the key challenges.”