“If there is to be support for Iraq, it has to be support for a government of Iraq. That is, a government of all the people, and that is representative of and responsive to all elements of Iraq,” Petraeus said, according to The Spectator. “President Obama has been quite clear on this: This cannot be the United States being the air force for Shia militias or a Shia on Sunni Arab fight. It has to be a fight of all of Iraq against extremists.”

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Petraeus’s comments stand in contrast to his record of calling for more U.S. troops for both the 2007 surge in Iraq and a similar effort in Afghanistan that began in late 2009, underscoring the complexity of the current situation in Iraq.

Maliki has long been accused of refusing to work with Iraq’s Sunni minority and using military aggression to force obedience. Protests against his actions have grown across Sunni areas of Iraq for at two years.

Petraeus’s comments come as Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.) and other prominent lawmakers call for President Obama to authorize airstrikes in Iraq to break the momentum of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, an extreme offshoot of al-Qaeda that has seized several key cities across the country and threatened security in Baghdad, the capital. Ironically, McCain called for Obama’s national security team to be fired last week, and suggested Obama should consult with Petraeus.

It seems unlikely that Maliki will move toward compromising with the Sunnis any time soon. He admitted on television Wednesday that his government has made some mistakes, but it was not the time to dwell on them.