Well, Maliki certainly has his game on! Several articles in today's Aswat Aliraq show that he's dressed to the nines and gunning for the babes...

In Diala...

Military reinforcements arrived on Friday morning in Diala province from Baghdad to participate in the operations recently announced by the Iraqi Premier Nouri al-Maliki to track down gunmen, said a security source.

"Scores of military vehicles carrying Iraqi troops with armored vehicles, arrived today in al-Moradiya area in Baaquba on the road linking Diala to Baghdad," the source told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI) on condition of anonymity.
"The reinforcements came to participate in the imminent military operations in Diala," he said.

Yeppers, those gunmen need to be hunted down... Just like this Imam and 25 followers needed to be arrested too...

A security force raided a mosque belonging to the Sadrists, or Iraqis loyal to Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, and arrested its imam (preacher) along with 25 worshippers in Diwaniya on Friday, Sadr's office director in the province said.

"A force from the Diwaniya Emergency raided Imam Ali mosque in northwestern Diwaniya and arrested the mosque preacher Sheikh Hussein al-Karbalaie and 25 worshippers," Sayyed Ali al-Gharabi told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI).
Gharabi said the raiding force assaulted the imam and the worshippers by beating and verbal abuse before arresting them without any apparent reason," he said.
Police sources could not be reached immediately for clarifications on the incident.
However, an official source in the Diwaniya provincial building told VOI by phone that the reason for the arrest was "excesses and insults against the government during religious sermons and occasions in Imam Ali mosque".
"According to the Iraqi law, the security forces are authorized to interfere against whoever needlessly insults the government and tarnish its image," the source, who did not want his name mentioned, said, not giving details.

Whew, it's nice to see the fruits of democracy are taking root...! Kinda reminds me of this Maladministration's political witchhunts conducted by our own DoJ... Maybe, Maliki is learning after all!

Speaking of Maliki's gamemanship, Gareth Porter penned another outstanding article...

Bush outfoxed in the Iraqi sands

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's demand for a timetable for complete United States military withdrawal from Iraq, confirmed on Tuesday by his National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie, has signaled the almost certain defeat of the George W Bush administration's aim of establishing a long-term military presence in the country. [...]

The Maliki government was rejecting the US demand for access to bases with no time limit as well as for complete freedom to use them without consultation with the Iraqi government, as well as its demand for immunity for its troops and contractors. The Iraqis were asserting that these demands violated Iraqi sovereignty. By early June, Iraqi officials were openly questioning for the first time whether Iraq needed a US military presence at all.

The unexpected Iraqi resistance to the US demands reflected the underlying influence of Iran on the Maliki government as well as Muqtada's recognition that he could achieve his goal of liberating Iraq from US occupation through political-diplomatic means rather than through military pressures. [...]

Iran put very strong pressure on Iraq to reject the agreement, as soon as it saw the initial US draft. It could cite the fact that the draft would allow the US to use Iraqi bases to attack Iran, which was known to be a red line in Iran-Iraq relations.

The Iranians could argue that an Iraqi Shi'ite administration could not depend on the United States, which was committed to a strategy of alliance with Sunni regimes in the region against the Shi'ite ones.

Iran was able to exploit a deep vein of Iraqi Shi'ite suspicion that the US might still try to overthrow the Shi'ite government, using former prime minister Iyad Allawi and some figures in the Iraqi army. When the US draft dropped an earlier US commitment to defend Iraq against external aggression and pledged only to "consult" in the event of an external threat, Iran certainly exploited the opening to push Maliki to reject the agreement.

The use of military bases in Iraq to project US power into the region to carry out regime change in Iran and elsewhere had been an essential part of the neo-conservative plan for invading Iraq from the beginning.

The Bush administration raised the objective of a long-term military presence in Iraq based on the "Korea model" last year at the height of the US celebration of the pacification of the Sunni stronghold of Anbar province, which it viewed as sealing its victory in the war.

But the Iraqi demand for withdrawal makes it clear that the Bush administration was not really in control of events in Iraq, and that Shi'ite political opposition and Iranian diplomacy could trump US military power.

That's only snippets of it, I recommend reading the whole article...