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The same interest here which is this fight against sunni radicals which is isis. from the perspective of maliki, if you re a little bit on our side of the border, that s fine, we re going to kind of let it go. as long as you re hitting isis because the near-term imperative for maliki is to stop isis before they take more territory, before they acquire more power or before they threaten his government and frankly at some point his own life. i mean, there s a way in which maliki has to be remembering what happened to saddam. that s a good point. we saw the frightening video where we fell in the news. maliki is also under a great deal of political pressure. the iraqis have to form a new government. maliki said he wants to have that new parliament seated by july 1st. that is tuesday. for those who aren t looking right at a calendar. and he s also facing pressure from within his own side. today an influential iraqi shiite cleric, muqtada al sadr came out and called for a national gove ....
maliki has spoken to foreign press really for the first time since this hasesquesq escalated. let s play that. translator: yes, they did strike inside the syrian side of the border. there was no coordination involved, but we welcome this action. we actually welcome nassirian strike against isis because this group targets both iraq and syria. so we welcome nassirian striantt isis. both countries welcome these actions, but we didn t make any requests from syria. they carry on their strikes and we carry out ours. the final winners are our two countries. of course we don t know who the final winners will be for some time. obviously somewhat unusual for a leader of a state to welcome air strikes from another country inside his state, but it refl t reflects fact we put the map up on the screen, it says iraq and syria. no, there s a middle area in between which is much less iraq or at least his control over iraq and is much more these rebel breakaway groups. ....
Remain as prime minister of iraq, do you think? well, i think it s hard to say, but that is a bad side for him. sadr is extremely influential. he commands large numbers of shiite people, also shiite militiamen. he s a guy who s got muscle. his followers did a lot of damage, killed a lot of americans when we occupied the country. he s not the only prominent shiite who is essentially saying that maliki can t form and lead a government that s going to stabilize the country. the long-term solution here, and the one that washington wants, is a new iraqi government that brings in the kurds and sunnis who felt they were pretty much disenfranchised, kicked out of the process, and shows them they have a stake in the future of a unified iraq and, therefore, the sunnis in particular end this rebellion, stop supporting isis. and that is the only long-term way to kind of bring stability back to the region. so, it does seem that other ....
Place that might exacerbate the sectarian divisions that are already at a heightened level of tension. and so it s very important that nothing take place that contributes to the extremism or could act as a flashpoint with respect to the sectarian divide. those comments coming as the syrian government bombed isis strong holds on the iraqi side of the border today. prime minister maliki says he supports the air strikes. meanwhile, iran is sending military supplies and intel assistance to baghdad. maliki s security forces were tested again today when isis militants attacked a university in tikrit. joining us now, a rare appearance at the table, michael crowley, chief foreign affairs correspondent at time. great to have you with usual officially in person. welcome to the cycle. did you think i was a hologram? let s start with the big news, john kerry making a statement to iran and syria, stay out of this thing. ....
Walk us through what iraq is doing here and saying they re not requesting syrian air strikes but they do welcome them. right. again, it s less about sovereign territory right now and state borders. if you re maliki, it s more about stopping isis. isis is presenting an existential threat to his government and to the unity of iraq. he would in the long term like to have iraq remain a unified nation state with the borders it has right now. but in the moment those borders aren t that important. questions of sovereignty and whether the bombs are falling on one side of the border or the other are less important than we ve got to blow these guys up before they come get us, come get me, if you re maliki. basically maliki is more or less supporting and aligned with bashar al assad, the leader of syria, who is an alowite which is an offshoot and an ally of iran. so maliki, iran, assad, all have ....