Farewell Iraq

The rush to war in Iraq for national security and WMDs and 9/11 and all that bullshit has now finished the country. I'm officially certifying the death certificate as of this time on this date. It has been on life support since our invasion, which is what killed it. And a civil war was the only possible outcome. As Cenk Uygur points out:

An Iraqi Sunni is a thousand times more loyal to his fellow Sunnis than to some theoretical Iraqi government. The same is true of Shiites and even more true of Kurds. They don’t care about Iraq – we do.

The Iraqis are perfectly capable of fighting with passion and effectiveness. Just look at the insurgency – those are Iraqi fighters (at least 90% according to the various Pentagon sources). Look at the Kurdish peshmarga militia that maintains order in the north. Look at the Badr brigades and the Mahdi army of the Shiites in the south. All of these forces are perfectly capable and willing to fight – just not for the Iraqi army.

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There is no Iraq. It does not exist in the minds and souls of the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. There will be three different countries in the place we call Iraq, whether we like it or not.

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What we should be doing is working towards a realistic goal – a relatively peaceful transition towards three different countries in the area. We might not be able to keep these people together but we could probably help them to separate.

I don't see Iraq ever being Iraq again. If stay the course means our soldiers being the primary target in a three way civil war, I see the Presidents judgement (as if) coming into serious question. The good news it's over for Bush. The bad news is:

And at what point will we have to re-invade Iraq to protect the Sunni minority from the Shiite oppression?

That day promises to be rich with irony. I wonder if people will notice. They didn't seem to when Rumsfeld ordered the invasion of the country he sold weapons to for having too many weapons (let alone the fact that he sold them those weapons to use against Iran and now we just handed the country over to Iran with our invasion to get rid of the weapons we sold them to fight against Iran).