It could be argued that what we are seeing right now in Iraq is a mini-Civil War.
I don't think the analogy is accurate. The Sunnis don't have the assets necessary to fight a civil war, such as an army, bases, supply lines, a meaningful arms procurement program and, especially, a national treasury to finance a mini-civil war.
Some of the Sunnis are in a fringe guerilla war, which has no realistic scenario where the Sunnis defeat the Shia/Kurdish/Coalition alliance (which has all of those "assets"). The longer the Sunnis keep up their guerilla activities, the more and more they will be marginalized and lose standing in the future Iraq. The outcome where the Sunni insurgency actually defeats the rest of the population (including coalition forces) is really hard to imagine.
What's keeping it "mini" is the US occupation. What would be happening between the factions if we were not there, to lend military support to one faction over the others.
Who knows? We are there. Training Iraqis to replace us. Probably making Iraqi civil defense forces stronger by the day.
Who is training the Sunnis to be better suicide bombers? And how many Sunnis will choose to follow a leadership that says go blow yourself up, when presented with an alternative which is to play a role in the Shia/Kurdish/Coalition reconstruction process?
Which begs the question, how can we ever leave?
We are only trapped there forever if you believe Iraqis are incapable of policing themselves. There is no reason to believe that is the case. If it is the case, then they should be colonized, but I won't even go there :-)
As for how we can ever leave, well bus, ship and airplane all seem reasonable options. |
