Right-wing Australian PM getting frustrated with Maliki

Australian Prime Minister John Howard -- the same leader that said al Qaeda hopes for a Barack Obama presidency -- lashed out at Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Saturday for the lack of political progress:

"Iwas speaking plainly as a friend saying more progress should be made,"Howard said. "The Americans in particular are making an enormoussacrifice, they are losing troops every day.

"I am insisting that it is his responsibility to make progress."

"I think we would all like to see the process of reconciliation moving forward a bit faster," he told Sky News.

"I'munder no illusions about how difficult it is and we're certainly notnaive in our commentary on the situation there, but there is no doubtthat the process needs to move a bit faster."

Some of the remaining members of the coalition of the willing are slow in understanding that Iraq is less a front in the war on terror than it is the central battlefield in a generation-long proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran.  The real war against al Qaeda is in Afghanistan, where, with the exception of Kabul, the Afghan capital, al Qaeda and Taliban fighters have destabilized the country.

We have 20,000 troops in Afghanistan, and 160,000 troops in Iraq.  How is Iraq eight times more important than Afghanistan?  Time for a reality check!