The Shi'a in Iraq more closely associate with the Shi'a of Iran than they do with the Sunnis of Iraq. Why do you think Iran has been so active in this whole affair? Why do you think that even while Bush and Iran were trading very public jabs, Maliki and Ahmadinejad were carrying out an equally public (but largely ignored by US media) display of friendship? Many of the Shi'a in the south of Iraq share kinship roots with the Shi'a of Iran, and Shi'a on both sides of the border (rightly) view the long bloody war between Iraq and Iran as a contrivance of Saddam to try to finally cleave the Shi'a of the two regions once and for all of associations and sympathies he saw (correctly) as a threat to his ability to run the south of Iraq.
The Border between Iraq and Iran is more-or-less a modern contrivance, unrelated to the natural alliances and demographics of that region. Al Maliki knows that Iran will be his bread and butter and protector when the US is gone, and is actively looking forward to that.
Iran will (and has already) been assisting Iraq in putting down the Sunnis. The predominantly Sunni Gulf States will (correctly) see this as the formation of a greater Shi'a power block between a Shi'a lead Iraq as a satellite state to Iran. They will not let this stand, especially if it is done over the dead bodies of Sunni Muslims, as is the case.
Iraq as conceived of today, proscribed within the borders as drawn and being a Pan-Arab state is a fiction, and has been from the inception. Really, only the Ba'ath party has given the country identity for the last 40 years, and thats now long gone.
Who/What Is Iraq? The Kurds who just want an end to their oppression by the modern Iranian, Iraqi and Turkish states- who carry on the tradition of centuries in the slaughter of the Kurds? The Sunni Arabs of the region? nursing the wounds of the colossal failure of the Pan-Arab movement? Who made a move towards secularism and modernity only to give birth to a series of bloody dictators? Who see the cultural vigor of the fundamentalist Sunni movements in the region? The Iraqi Shi'a, who veiw the Iranian as natural allies, and the Sunni Iraqis who dominated the Ba'ath party and killed their families as their blood enemies?
The Sunni Iraqis will never accept rule by the Shi'a. The Shi'a hardliners see little future with the Sunnis. The Kurds just want a little piece of their own pie and have long been working out how to play all sides to that end (as they played us!)
Its all there in the pages of recent history, and in the current trends of the region. This is a timebomb, and if you knew anything about this, you would know that Maliki will make a bee line for the Iranians as soon as we make it feasible, indeed, he already has.
Yeti