Despite what you hear, Iraqis want a timetable for our withdrawl

Let's see, there are 275 in the Iraqi parliament. Before al-Sadr's group left al-Maliki's UIA (United Iraqi Alliance) with just 85 seats, down from the 140 it once had and giving it a very thin majority.

The al- Sadr camp already had yanked its six ministers from the Cabinet in April over al- Maliki's failure to endorse a fixed timeline for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. On Saturday, Sadrists trumpeted their resistance to the Americans in justifying the departure from a coalition that had guaranteed Shiite political dominance for nearly three years.

In leaving, they sought to present themselves as Iraq's true patriots -- unlike their fellow Shiite politicians, who remained America's ally.

"The main problem in Iraq now is the occupation, and the solution is to have a timetable for the withdrawal of occupiers, and anyone who agrees with us on this demand will find our hearts opened to him," lawmaker Nasar Rubaie said.

The ruling alliance had been engineered in late 2004 by senior clerics with the goal of securing Shiites' right to power. Until now, Shiite leaders managed to keep unity among the community's fractious political parties, but that had changed Saturday night.

"The UIA has started breaking down. They were the biggest bloc at the parliament, but not anymore," said Salim Abdullah, the spokesman for the largest Sunni political bloc, which withdrew from al- Maliki's Cabinet in August. "Maybe the government will be changed within four months."

So basically to support and protect the embattled al-Maliki government we need to present them wit ha time table for withdrawl of our troops.

For their part, people around al- Maliki were relieved. "To be frank, for a long time the Sadrists were outside of the UIA. Their decisions were always not in line with the UIA," Askari said. "Some UIA members are happy. This makes things clear."

Al- Maliki's camp also was confident that the Kurds would not abandon the ruling alliance. Askari said the Kurds see their interest in sticking with the Shiite bloc, rather than switching to a side that might not back their claims to an autonomous region in the north.

Kurdish parliament member Mahmoud Othman confirmed that the Kurds had no interest in ditching the UIA and al- Maliki, although their relationship had been rocky previously. "There is no better alternative than Maliki," he said. "There is no change."

You know, instead of playing these games for a country that was artifically created by the British, and getting our soldiers killed we sould partition the country and then stand with the Kurds so the Turks, who will have their backs up anyway, won't attack the Kurds.

Iraq is a country that was cobbled together by the British, It does not hold the same feeling of national unity as say Kuwait, Iran, the UAE, Jordan, etc. It's time to realized that because of it's artifical creation, it may NEVER. And we could get our people out much sooner and work for stablisation better if we partitioned it and withdrew.

Sore L.A. Times