The Bush administration is caught in a vise. Here at home they have lost public support and their Congressional allies are scurrying for cover. But overseas they have the opposite problem. All of our allies are asking us to stay in Iraq.

Arab allies have quietly put serious pressure on President Bush to remain in Iraq, fearing premature evacuation will turn the country over to Iranian-backed militia, sources said Wednesday.

“What concerns us is the instability and uncertainty in the area,” Egyptian Ambassador Nabil Fahmy told the New York Daily News. “We need to stabilize the situation before the next step, otherwise it will become complete chaos.”

Several other Sunni Arab nations that are valuable U.S. allies – including Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, the Emirates – are concerned about Iran’s influence and the growing power of Iraq’s Shiite majority. The Israelis, an unlikely ally, agree.

As Iran secretly backs Shiite groups in Iraq, wealthy Saudis already have begun to finance Sunni militias in Iraq, a source privy to Israeli intelligence said.

If the U.S. were to leave, the Saudi government would likely openly finance Sunni fighters, the source said. A senior U.S. official confirmed the mostly unseen Arab pressure on Bush to stay the course in Iraq.

“There are worries about Iranian influence in Iraq and in the region. . . . The sectarian violence has deepened the division between the Shiites and the Sunnis,” said Jordanian Embassy spokesman Merissa Khurma.

There are about eight degrees of irony involved in this. The idea that our most important ally, Saudi Arabia, is funding the Salafi jihadists that make up the heart of Al-Qaeda in Iraq is almost amusing in its insanity. It’s also eye-opening to see Israel in agreement with their Arab neighbors about the need for America to stay the course occupying an Arab country. Meanwhile, as Juan Cole points out, the Shi’ite Prime Minister of Iraq has issued a stark warning to the Shi’ite militia of Moqtada al-Sadr.

Iraq’s prime minister has told Shiite militiamen to surrender their arms or face an all-out assault by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces, senior Iraqi officials said Wednesday, as President Bush said he will commit an additional
Under pressure from the U.S., Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has agreed to crack down on fighters controlled by his most powerful political ally, Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric, according to officials. Previously, al-Maliki had resisted the move.

“Prime Minister al-Maliki has told everyone that there will be no escape from attack,” said a senior Shiite legislator and close al-Maliki adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak for the prime minister. “The government has told the Sadrists: ‘If we want to build a state we have no other choice but to attack armed groups.'”

Here is Cole’s interpretation.

He is telling the Sadrists to lie low while the US mops up the Sunni Arab guerrillas. Sadr’s militia became relatively quiescent for a whole year after the Marines defeated it at Najaf in August, 2004. But since it is rooted in an enormous social movement, the militia is fairly easy to reconstitute after it goes into hiding.

The shit is hitting the fan. Bush can’t stay without Congressional approval and Congress is incredibly hostile to this escalation. But he can’t pull out without alienating all our regional allies. And, yet, somehow we are supposed to abide two more years of this administration?