TW: Iraq is going through a severe molting process. It will be violent, this is inevitable and unavoidable. Would the violence have been different had we not "surged" perhaps. But I doubt it will be that different (some Americans may feel better for the surge, I do not). The Iraqis never wanted to be occupied and certainly do not want to be occupied now. The sooner we have fewer troops there the better. Although I suspect five years from now we will still have a material presence in Kurdistan (they DO want us around) and perhaps in or around Basra to keep an eye on Iran.
Indigenous violence in a country one occupies is one thing, a different thing when one is not occupying it.
From Nightwatch:
"We worked ourselves out of a job," according to a US military officer, referring to the sharp drop in violence over the past two years. "This is what the end of a counterinsurgency looks like."
Actually the US officer is incorrect and looking backwards, not forwards. The next stage of the insurgency is just beginning. It features a violent breakout from US-enforced power sharing, but the US now is de-fanged by common consent and on the side lines. The Sunnis, Shia, and Kurds want to slug it out without the US as the referee. This is not success, just postponement of the end game.
The unfinished business is political control of Baghdad, between the Sunnis and the Shii. The US is no longer relevant to this smoldering grudge match, by common consent. The Shia backed by Iran should win, on the numbers, thanks to the US military effort to support majority rule, but the bloodletting is likely to get much, much worse."
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