Word: clouts
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...couple of days have made the following grimly clear: President Bush can't rely on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to stop the sectarian warfare, according to Bush's own national security adviser. Al-Maliki is beholden to arch-sectarian Moqtada al-Sadr, who this week showed his clout by ordering his minions out of the fragile coalition government. And if the climax of this cliffhanger was supposed to be former Secretary of State James Baker leading the cavalry to the rescue, the reports of his group's conclusions are not exactly reassuring. There is a sense of profound...
...situation on the ground in Iraq grows uglier, Washington increasingly seems willing to blame the downturn on Maliki's lack of clout and the poor performance of the Iraqi military. This strikes Anthony Cordesman, an expert on the war with the Center for Security and Strategic Studies, as a bit dubious. He said, Wednesday, "The idea that when you send the bull in to liberate a china shop, [and then] you blame the china shop for breaking the china is, shall we say, somewhat ingenuous, and probably misleading." But it may reflect a growing desire among many in Washington...
...result, whatever deal the two men agree in Jordan - they have a dinner meeting Wednesday and a breakfast confab Thursday - it's unlikely that either man has the political clout back home to make it stick...
...sting in 1980, in which the Pennsylvania Congressman told an agent posing as an Arab sheik that he couldn't be bribed "at this point." But on ethics reforms or any other tough issues that lawmakers like to publicly support and privately fight, Pelosi might now lack the backroom clout needed to get results. "When key votes like the budget come around, this will make it a lot harder for her to pressure members," said a Democratic Congressman who backed Hoyer over Murtha. "It's going to be a lot harder for that pressure to be as meaningful...
...Since the general election, the AMS has seemed in a limbo. With Sunnis inclined to give their newly elected politicians a chance to protect their rights, the clergy lost much of their clout. "[The AMS] played an important role in the past, but now they have to sit back and let us do our job," al-Hashimi told TIME in the summer...