Sorry, Dianavan. Still see no proof that the US wants a puppet, or that Allawi would be that puppet. What Bush wants more than anything is to declare victory--this time with some semblance of credibility--and leave. He is aware that the more US soldiers killed, the worse his place in US history--unless he can somehow claim that all the sacrifice left behind something approaching a democracy--since his original excuse of WMD has proven totally worthless.

Most recent development, per the Wall St Journal today, is that since one of his top lieutenants has just been killed, al Sadr has "signalled an end to acquiescence in the US security 'surge' ". If he does decide that the "surge" should be resisted, that could easily spell the end to US involvement--if the US body count goes way up, due to resistance by Sadrists, the pressure on Bush to withdraw will be too much for him in his weakened state. Nobody in the US wants the US body count to go up, of course--but Bush has staked the "success" of his "presidency" on "success" in Iraq--which is of course a constantly changing chimera.

And as a Shiite leader, Maliki will not be able to countenance the slaughter of Shiites by US forces--especially since the Sadr Army has been the first bulwark against assaults by insurgents--and even, as a state within a state, provided medical care and education the Iraqi "state" did not.

As far as the internal US situation is concerned, no matter how many times Bush changes the definition of "success" in Iraq, the one thing the US public will not accept is a rising body count.