I think I’ve figured out what is going on in Iraq. It’s a numbers thing. So the National Alliance has 180 of the 328 seats giving them the right to name the PM. The problem is those 180 seats include the 90 to 110 from the SOL as part of the National Alliance since technically they got the most seats of any one party within the National Alliance.
So as long as the SOL keeps Maliki as their sole nominee and they have the most votes of all the other blocs that make up the National alliance, and Sadr has his guy with only a few seats, Hakim has his guy with only a few seats, Allawi has his guy with only a few seats etc....then that gives a good chance for Maliki to win which is what Frank is looking at.
So once they did the numbers today, Najafi figured out they couldn't do this today without a general consensus for one guy that would give them numbers over Maliki. So they went to Grand Ayatollah Sistani and told him to break the stalemate and he publicly broke it by endorsing Mahdi for PM. IMO they will all now come back put up Mahdi up against Maliki and Maliki will lose badly just by the numbers which will kill the SOL as a party.
It is incumbent on the SOL right now for their very existence to seriously consider dumping Maliki for Najm who is a Maliki puppet or risk their own extinction which will lead most of them to prosecution. Maliki is now hoping on a major catastrophic breakdown of the NA which will give him the nod for a 3rd term based on his election numbers. I do not think that is gonna happen. IMO the next 48 hours will see a lot of back door meetings within the NA and the SOL which IMO will lead to a new PM.