Things are so unstable right now that the outcome is in doubt.
Actually the outcome is not in doubt. The outcome is chaos. What the chaos will lead to is in doubt, and that question is not likely to be resolved for years.
We are finding ourselves, with disturbing frequency, in situations where all available courses of action will lead to worse problems. If we root out Fallujah and Najaf we come off looking like hardnosed killers, if we don't do it we come off looking like wimps. If we turn over power in June, we will inevitably turn over power to an unrepresentative group that cannot govern. If we don't, we look like colonizers.
This is what happens when you ignore nuance, and charge in thumping your chest. That approach leads to dead ends, often with the dead stacking up very quickly. Then people look around and ask "how did we get here"? We got there by thinking with our balls. It never works.
The most stable bunch are the Kurds.
For the moment, yes. They have no influence outside their own territory, though, and they face a major choice of their own. Are they going to harness themselves to an Iraqi state that looks likely to descend into anarchy, or will they try to secede, and risk loss of US support and possible Turkish intervention?
Time will tell. It might be a good time to ask, again, whether we are draining the swamp or sinking into it.
We can't govern Iraq. Neither can anybody else, at this point. Nature abhors a vacuum, and who do you suppose will fill it? |
