Analysis: Obama Talks with Iraq Prime Minister Al-Maliki

President Obama's meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki at US Camp Victory in Baghdad was a brief one, and the aftermath is more spin than substance.

The Obama camp initially put out the message that "Obama 'strongly encouraged' the Iraqi leader to take steps to unite political factions, including integrating Sunnis into the government and security forces". The President himself then put out the on-the-record statement, ""They have got to make political accommodations. They're going to have to decide that they want to resolve their differences through constitutional means and legal means."

As we have been noting, and as some of the US press are now realising, there is a serious tension between the local Sunni groups and Awakening Councils that the US military has been funding in the "surge" and the national Government.

A misleading follow-up in The New York Times today focuses on an audiotape by Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a former deputy of Saddam Hussein, who is the last high-ranking fugitive from the American forces, which calls Iraqis to overthrow the al-Maliki Government and restore the Baath Party to power. Al-Maliki in turn blamed "Baathists" for a series of car bombings in Baghdad.

The issue isn't "Baathists"; it's highly unlikely that the Iraqi people will welcome the political resurrection of Saddam's loyalists. The label instead deflects from the possibilities that 1) Al Qa'eda in Iraq is far from a spent force, a fear raised by Iraqi President Jalal Talebani on Tuesday, or, more seriously, 2) that an increasingly violent showdown between Sunni parties and the Iraqi Prime Minister.

It is unclear what Obama's private words or public pressure can do to deflect the second scenario, especially if al-Maliki is determined to face down those he sees as Sunni political rivals and militias. The Iraqi Prime Minister limited his comments after the meeting with Obama to the terse statement, ""Dialogue should be the only way to resolve any issue, whether it was among components of Iraqi society or in the region."