Report: U.S. may try to oust Maliki

In December, the administration attempted to coordinate Prime Minister Maliki's ouster with Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of Iraq's largest Shiite party in parliament, chosen by Washington to be the power-broker behind the scenes. The idea then was to remove Maliki as a stumbling block to going after Moqtada al-Sadr. But that plan was stopped dead in its tracks by Grand Ayatollah Sistani. Coincidental to today's report, al-Hakim was again in the U.S. last week for 'medical treatment' (he is now in Iran for treatment), and Iraq's president Jalal Talabani -- the most important Kurdish politician in Iraq -- recently arrived for 'weight loss' issues. Also coincidentally, Vice President Cheney has just completed a trip to the Mid-East for talks with regional leaders about 'stabilizing' Iraq.

WASHINGTON — As Iraq's government compiles a record of failure, the Bush administration is under growing pressure to intervene to rearrange Baghdad's dysfunctional political order, or even install a new leadership.

Publicly, administration officials say they remain committed to Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, even though after a year in office, his elected government has failed to complete any important steps toward political reconciliation — the legislative "benchmarks" sought by U.S. officials.

But privately, some U.S. officials acknowledge that the congressional clamor to find another approach will increase sharply in coming months if no progress is made toward tamping down sectarian violence, bringing more minority Sunnis into the government and fairly dividing up the nation's oil resources.

Intervention "is the eternal temptation for the Americans," said one U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity when discussing internal deliberations. "As we get closer and closer to the fall, and the benchmarks are not met … there will be a growing appeal to the idea that if we can replace the top guy, we can get back on track."

Read the rest at the LA Times

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