Despite how much the Bush Clan crows about their unending support for Al-Maliki, behind the scenes they seem far less optimistic, as a recently leaked memo from Stephen Hadley demonstrates.

We returned from Iraq convinced we need to determine if Prime Minister Maliki is both willing and able to rise above the sectarian agendas being promoted by others. Do we and Prime Minister Maliki share the same vision for Iraq?
If so, is he able to curb those who seek Shia hegemony or the reassertion of Sunni power? The answers to these questions are key in determining whether we have the right strategy in Iraq.

A lot of the following text suggests that trust in Maliki’s intentions is not very high. Accusations are lobbed around that he’s more interested in putting the Shiites in power than having a real unified country.

So if that’s the case, or if it’s not really the case but it’s looking that way, what is the solution? Fortunately, Hadley has a few ideas:

Shake up his cabinet by appointing nonsectarian, capable technocrats in key service (and security) ministries;

Announce an overhaul of his own personal staff so that “it reflects the face of Iraq”;

Demand that all government workers (in ministries, the Council of Representatives and his own offices) publicly renounce all violence for the pursuit of political goals as a condition for keeping their positions;

Plus some other awesome suggestions. What a great idea. The best way to impress a democracy upon the people of Iraq, obviously, is to have a foreign power come in and force the government to conform to our standards.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think the Bush Clan cares less about the Iraqi people deciding the fate of the Iraqi people and more about America deciding the fate of the Iraqi people. I’m going to re-quote this one bit:

Do we and Prime Minister Maliki share the same vision for Iraq?

So what if we don’t? Maliki is the Prime Minister of Iraq. Whatever his vision of Iraq is, is the way it should pan out. To suggest that it matters AT ALL what America thinks of his vision is to undermine our supposed reason for invasion in the first place.

What do these people plan on doing? Putting new governments in over and over again until we get one we like?