"Your doing a heck of a job Maliki"

It seems like every time President Bush tells someone they are doing a good job they are out of a job within a week or so.

It started with Michael Brown, who was doing a "heck of a job" with the bungling of the FEMA reaction to hurricane Katrine. Brownie was gone in days.

Then it was Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, whom Bush had said was doing an excellent job. Bush also said that Rumsfeld was not going anywhere. Then, Rumsfeld resigned the day after the elections.

So when President Bush said that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki was the "right man for the job", I thought, nice to know you Maliki.

Whenever President Bush compliments you on the job that your doing it usually means your about to lose that job.

"Your doing a good job" is actually code for "pack up your desk" in Bushanese.

It is hard to discern wether Maliki really wants to do the right thing for his country but is thwarted by sectarian rifts and violence, or if Maliki is not committed to the job but committed to sectarian militias.

So days ago I had written about the alliances between members of the Iraqi government and sectarian militias and how I believed they prevented a peaceful objective from being achieved in Iraq.

As if to prove my point members of the Iraqi government loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr walked out of parliament and the Cabinet on Wednesday in protest to Maliki's planned meeting with President Bush, today the boycott continues and the bloc claims that they are about to form an alliance with Iraq's Sunni's and Christians that has been under works for several months already.

Saleh al-Mutlag a Sunni politician and critic of Maliki said that the alliance would not include the Mehdi Army, a militia loyal to al-Sadr, but that the alliance could be achieve peacefully because al-Sadr himself is "not negative" about the idea (yet). He says the alliance would be composed of Clerics, Kurds, Turkmens, and Yazidis and nonsectarian.

All these indicators may possibly be pointing in the direction of the ousting of Maliki. Whether it's a good thing or not, hey, it's hard to tell these days what makes things better and what makes things worse.

Some are suggesting that this alliance Saleh al-Mutlag is speaking of with cooperation from al-Sadr may just be the key to securing the situation in Iraq, others say it's a recipe ripe for disaster.

At any rate, "Your doing a heck of a job," Maliki, at not being able to form alliances within your own country. "Your doing a heck of a job" at not preventing violence too.