U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates meets with Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Governement, at the regional White House during a brief visit to Erbil, Iraq, July 29, 2009. DoD photo by U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Jerry MorrisonFrom Commentary Magazine:
There’s a lot of talk right now among opinion writers and policy analysts about how Iraq may be slouching toward civil war again. It’s understandable. Suicide- and car-bomb attacks make headlines every week. After a recent devastating assault on a Shia village, a woman standing amid rubble looked into a television camera and yelled at Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki: “Look Prime Minister,” she shouted, “look Minister of Interior, where’s the security you’re talking about?”
Iraq is still a violent, dysfunctional mess. It probably will be for a long time. But Iraqis aren’t necessarily doomed to suffer another round of internal bloodletting like they did during the middle years of this decade.
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My Comment: Michael Totten gives another excellent analysis on what is happening in Iraq. A part of me feels that it is inevitable (in this transition period) for there to be an increase in sectarian violence and bombings. I expect thousands of Iraqis to be killed in the next year or two, and even more wounded and crippled.
But in this carnage I do see hope. Iraq is sitting on some of the world's richest oil fields that is probably worth in excess of $10 trillion dollars. It is because of this wealth that the Iraqi leadership on all sides will sit down to sort out their differences. There is too much to lose .... and too little to gain .... if they keep up their fight.
In the end I do believe that Iraq will be a functional Arab democracy in the Middle East (I do not include Lebanon in this analysis), and it will become a symbol of what is possible if sectarian differences can be put aside. but before we get there .... the fight will have to continue, and it will be the Iraqis who will be carrying it.