You literally rebuffed 1 paragraph of the whole thing, and pretty much got the tone completely wrong, the following paragraph illustrates.
"The Iranians often hold their cards very close and it’s difficult to get a reading on what they want from the outside. So far they appear to be behind Maliki, and they want Maliki and his government to survive this crisis. Iran has been doing everything in its power to hold off the ISIS threat, but they may eventually reach the point where keeping Maliki in power becomes untenable.
The Iranians are pragmatic, and if Maliki becomes a threat to their interests they would be willing to get rid of him. I’m not sure they’ve reached that point yet. They have a tendency to refuse to make concessions under pressure, and that may be one of the reasons they are still standing with Maliki."
What part of that is a "rubber stamp single track course of action"? Seems to me he is allowing several possibilities and even admits Iran is hard to read, which they are, and leaves the door wide open for Iran to want him gone.
Just silly.
