Much of Maliki's support base is made up of people the US has or would easily call "terrorists".  The relationships between different ethnic groups and political factions are much more complicated in that region than here, and to insist that he issue all of his public statements along the lines of American definitions of "terrorists" in defiance of the sentiments of his constituents is unreasonable.  It's particularly absurd when you're holding him up to the United States Senate, in which many members voted on everything from the PATRIOT Act to the war based solely on domestic political considerations.

Just as a reminder, most liberals were outraged that Bush was asking European leaders to join the "Coalition of the Willing", precisely because he was asking them to ignore the wishes of their constituents.  Yet we're prepared to ask the same of Maliki, even when the stakes are so much higher for both him and us.

Nixon could go to China because he had a huge influx of ex-Democrat white racists in his party ready to let him do whatever the hell he wanted on foreign policy as long as he kept the civil rights movement from getting any further than it already had.  Had China been the major focus of domestic politics at the time, Nixon almost certainly couldn't have gone.  Politics always matters, and when it comes to the issue of opposition to Israel, the vast majority of Iraqis are much closer to Hezbollah's position than the United States'.

Yeah, the US intervened in his selection, but he WAS one of the most democratically elected Iraqi leaders in the history of the country.  And he IS still accountable to an elected Parliament.  All the Dems would do by forcing him to stand with us instead of the Iraqis is inch him closer to assasination or deposition.