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The NYT got ahold of the Hadley Iraq trip report memo drawn from his recent trip to Baghdad. This Hadley trip report memo was the starting point for a discussion on an internal administration Iraq strategy review, which was launched at a two-day meeting of Bush's entire national security team conducted over Veteran's Day weekend, about which I reported earlier this month. The fault lines going into that meeting included Cheney's office and some in the NSC arguing for more aggressively backing the Shias, and in particular, Hakim. Note the Hadley memo's recommendation to press Hakim/SCIRI to support Maliki, and the overall concern about whether Maliki is up to the task.
As the accompanying NYT analysis suggests, "Many of the proposals appear to be based on an assumption that the White House memo itself calls into question: that Prime Minister Maliki can be persuaded to break with 30 years of commitment to Shiite religious identity and set a new course, or abandon the ruling Shiite religious alliance to lead a radically different kind of government, a moderate coalition of Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish politicians." In other words, even those seemingly backing propping up Maliki believe he is not likely to be successful at the task. And then what? (This post has been updated).