Photo: Iran's Rafsanjani (Mousavi's mullah) with Iraq's Maliki, March 2009.

Off the wires:

BAGHDAD, June 20 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Saturday that the U.S. troops' withdrawal from Iraqi cities and towns by the end of this month would be a "great victory" for Iraqis.

"It is a great victory for Iraqis as we are going to take our first step toward ending the foreign presence in Iraq," Maliki said during a conference in Baghdad for leaders of ethnic Turkmen minority.

So, Maliki is claiming a "great victory" in "ending the foreign presence in Iraq" as US troops withdraw from Iraqi cities. "Ingrate" doesn't begin to describe this creep -- or, as Bush loyalists still prate, "our ally."

More than 4,000 US troops died defending those same Iraqi hellholes, I mean, cities, and many thousands more young American men have been maimed for life. The prime minister of Iraq, however, now transforms this longterm American  sacrifice on behalf of Iraq into a residual "foreign presence"  over which he can now taste victory. 

The point here is not Maliki's ingratitude. It is not even disloyalty. The point is that Iraq is not on the same side as the US -- the "foreign presence."  That means that when Maliki claims "great victory" over the US, and the US (conservatives) claim "great victory" in Iraq, they can't both be right. Someone is being played for a chump.