"With U.S. forces joining the fight against the Mahdi Army in Baghdad, the Bush administration’s current Iraq policy is to back the Iraqi political faction (led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim) most closely allied to Iran against the faction of Muqtada al-Sadr," writes Matt Duss. Duss goes on to theorize that there's a not-so-secret agreement between Maliki and the Bush administration in which the Maliki government pushes priorities that play well domestically while the Bush administration supports Maliki's attempts to violently consolidate power -- this explains the Maliki government's decision to reverse their veto on the provincial powers law. Ilan Goldenberg disagrees. Eric Martin disagrees with his disagreement.
