The Daily Background

Obama weighs in on Clinton’s call for Maliki’s ouster:

White House hopeful Barack Obama called the debate over the competency of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki a “distraction” Thursday, a day after rival Hillary Clinton called for the embattled leader’s removal.

“I think this is a distraction — this whole notion of ‘is Maliki the right guy?’” Obama told CNN’s Don Lemon. “We can replace Maliki with four, five other guys, but if the underlying political dynamic is not changing, then we will not see progress in Iraq.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Clinton, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, released a statement calling for the ouster of the prime minister, saying, “The Maliki government is nonfunctional and cannot produce a political settlement, because it is too beholden to religious and sectarian leaders.”

I guess on some level it is a distraction, I mean there is no silver bullet, or perfect leader that Iraq could have that would magically fix the situation. And it’s easy to use al-Maliki as a scapegoat, but the problems in Iraq are much, much larger than him. The neo-cons who seem to think that if they just repalace al-Maliki that everything will be fine in Iraq are truly out of touch with reality. I will repeat what I’ve said earlier however; that al-Maliki is a really uninspiring, ineffective Prime Minister who seems to lack the leadership abilities to forge any kind of consensus, or make any political reconciliations at all (which the new NIE seems to confirm).

I think he’s far too beholden to the Bush Administration, and he’s already stated that he wants the US to stay in Iraq indefinitely– far out of step of the vast majority of Iraqis. He simply doesn’t represent them. And he, like many other Iraqi politicians, seems to lack the appropriate sense of urgency (urgency that a pending US withdrawal would create in an instant, I might add).

I continue to believe that Iraq would be better with a more effective leader who can be more representative of all of Iraq, but only if Iraq’s parliament or public can constitutionally replace him in an orderly manner.

Update: Video of Obama’s comments here (wait till the end of the video where it’s discussed).

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