Updated: Democracy Schmemocracy...

Maliki, who won't seek a second term, won't come out and say it directly, but most vocal members of Iraq's government do not buy Bush's BS that more troops will "break the cycle of violence" in Iraq. Duh.

"The government believes there is no need for extra troops from the American side," Haidar al-Abadi, a Parliament member and close associate of Mr. Maliki, said Wednesday. "The existing troops can do the job."

Iraqis know that we will eventually leave. They know that at that time they will be forced to have good relations with power players in the nation and the region. Opposition to an American troop increase is a no-brainer in this context...

Update: Sandy Levinson notes that Bush's notion of "democracy" in Iraq is even more effed up, from the NY Times:

[Bush] put [the logic of his plan] far more bluntly when leaders of Congress visited the White House earlier on Wednesday. “I said to Maliki this has to work or you’re out,” the president told the Congressional leaders, according to two officials who were in the room. Pressed on why he thought this strategy would succeed where previous efforts had failed, Mr. Bush shot back: “Because it has to.”