Which side will Maliki choose

I don't know how serious this threat is, but it's forcing Maliki to make a big choice.

One of Sadr's top political aides in parliament told Reuters it would pull out of the U.S.-backed national unity government and from parliament if Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki went ahead with next week's meeting with Bush in Jordan.

"We have asked Maliki to cancel his meeting with Bush as there is no reason to meet the criminal who is behind terrorism in Iraq," Faleh Hasan Shanshal told Reuters. "We will suspend our membership in parliament and the cabinet if he goes ahead."

Sadr did not say this directly in public, but AP references this threat in the plural, "followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr warned they would suspend their membership in parliament...."

Also: In his Friday sermon, Sadr issued a call to Harith al Dhari to issue fatwas telling the Sunnis to abandon violence.

(And any hope of a near term crackdown on Sadr's militias by Maliki's government is now gone.)