Six weeks ago, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said we would see “a major breakthrough” within “weeks” on political reconciliation in Iraq, which he believes is unfolding at “breakneck speed.”

It’s one of those quotes that looks increasingly ridiculous all the time.

A principal architect of Iraq’s interim constitution, who resigned in August as one of the country’s top diplomats, has laid out a devastating critique of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the U.S. occupation, telling NBC News that, functionally, “there is no Iraqi government.”

The diplomat, Feisal Amin Istrabadi, said in his first interview since stepping down as Iraq’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations that “this government has got to go.”

Istrabadi said the Iraqi government itself is an illusion, stocked with incompetent administrators who had helped bring about “chaos and instability.” He pointed to the Health Ministry, dominated by the Mahdi Army militia. “You cannot have this sectarian doling out of the Cabinet ministries,” Istrabadi said. “You’ve got to bring in competent technocrats to try to run those ministries, the service ministries.”

This guy is clearly not on the same page as the Bush administration.