That's funny since 66% or so of Americans feel the same way about Bush.
As always, it's difficult to know where to begin with such news. George Bush is telling Iraq's "democracy" that HE doesn't like who they've selected as prime minister and that HE will no longer accept or support the current guy staying in the job.
Pardon me, but why should anyone care? And more importantly, is Bush nuts?
How do we, with a straight face, claim that Iraq is a new democracy when we are hand-picking the leader of said democracy? And how does Bush expect any leader of Iraq to have any credibility at all if we're the ones picking him? And finally, we are lucky the shi'ites are so far NOT a party to the resistance taking on American troops. That could change in a snap, and according to, I believe it was ABC News the other night, if the Shi'ites decide to rejoin the resistance, that will DOUBLE the number of resistance fighters taking the US on.
Clearly Iraq is such a mess that Bush is now getting desperate. There is no other way to explain why he would take such a drastic, heavy-handed, and full-of-potential-backfire approach to dealing with the Iraqi prime minister. I think the administration has decided that it's going to be all out civil war - well, it already IS all out civil war, but what Bush now has decided is that Iraq is LOST if the current guy remains in power, and thus they aren't worrying about harming Iraq's democracy, or provoking the shi'ites into joining the anti-American insurgency, simply because Bush already knows we're toast, Iraq is toast, if we stick with the status quo.
Basically, the patient has terminal cancer and Bush is going to Mexico to buy some last-minute Laetrile. Hardly a sign of optimism.
From the NYT:
Senior Shiite politicians said today that the American ambassador has told Shiite officials to inform the Iraqi prime minister that President Bush does not want him to remain the country's leader in the next government.
It is the first time the Americans have directly intervened in the furious debate over the country's top job, the politicians said, and it is inflaming tensions between the Americans and some Shiite leaders.
The ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, told the head of the main Shiite political bloc at a meeting last Saturday to pass a "personal message from President Bush" on to the prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who the Shiites insist should stay in his post for four more years, said Redha Jowad Taki, a Shiite politician and member of Parliament who was at the meeting.
Ambassador Khalilzad said that President Bush "doesn't want, doesn't support, doesn't accept" Mr. Jaafari to be the next prime minister, according to Mr. Taki, a senior aide to Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the Shiite bloc. It was the first "clear and direct message" from the Americans on the issue of the candidate for prime minister, Mr. Taki said.
