By guest host Jane Clayson:

U.S. politicians have been up in arms recently about Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Everyone agrees he needs to hurry up and make progress. And some, like Senators Carl Levin and Hillary Clinton, say he’s ineffective and should go.

But there are questions about whether it’s still America’s role to recommend regime change. Maliki has pushed back. And in the past couple of days he’s struck a potentially big political compromise.

Still, the violence continues. The Iraqi government’s reach is limited. And the U.S. clock is ticking down.

This hour On Point: Prime Minister Maliki, under fire from all directions.

Guests:

Carol Williams, Los Angeles Times Baghdad correspondent

James Dobbins, director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation, and Assistant Secretary of State under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush

Nir Rosen, journalist, fellow at the New America Foundation, and author of “In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq”

Fred Kagan, military historian, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and author of “Finding the Target: The Transformation of American Military Policy.”