WASHINGTON - Four times last year President Bush stood with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and four times he offered glowing appraisals.
Now, though, the president's comments about the Iraqi leader are couched with conditions and caution - rhetorical loopholes Bush will need to defend himself if the man on whom he has pinned everything fails.
The president has gone from holding up al-Maliki as unequivocally "the right guy for Iraq" to tersely declaring that "what matters is whether or not he performs."
Bush's linguistic shift on al-Maliki began last month when he announced his revamped Iraq war strategy. The president said the success of his new plan, keyed around dispatching 21,500 more U.S. troops, depends on the prime minister doing his part.
Bush attached no specific consequences if al-Maliki does not. He also offered no expressions of confidence that he would.
This new wait-and-see stance grew out of a recognition at the White House that Congress and the public needed the administration to show it would not wait forever for progress in Iraq generally and from the prime minister specifically. On Capitol Hill, a number of Republicans have joined Democrats to question the troop boost. And polls show that about a third of the public approve of how Bush is handling the war......
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