They don't bring me flowers anymore

Al Sadr party to boycott the Iraqi parliament if al Maliki meets with Bush. Boy, is our prez an influential guy.

In Baghdad, followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr threatened to boycott parliament and the Cabinet if Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki meets with President Bush in Jordan next week, a member of parliament said. Bush and al-Maliki were scheduled to meet Wednesday and Thursday in Amman.

The al-Sadr bloc in parliament and government is the backbone of al-Maliki's political support, and its withdrawal, if only temporarily, would be a severe blow to the prime minister's already shaky hold on power.

The meeting is to take place Sunday (I believe) in Jordan, since Bush is no longer safe anywhere in Iraq -- even unannounced. One wonders whether al Maliki will be able to get back to Iraq after the meeting or whether he will suffer the fate of the Thai leader overthrown in the coup the other day.

If a hostile government takes over, we'd better be ready to get our 145,000 troops (give or take) out of that hell hole in a hurry. An image of heliocopters evacuating people from the roof of the embassy comes to mind.