[Destro]

I understand that is the goal. We all watch sports don't we? We handicap based on the record of past performance. If Kosovo, the largest recent deployment of American occupation forces since is an example to follow then Iraq, an occupation 100 times the complexity, will be a horror.

Will we hunt down Shia if they start killing Sunni? Will we hunt down Kurds if they start killing Turks?

[marron]

It will be simplified by the fact that it is not a UN occupation. We will (he says, as if he knew what he was saying) be using Iraqis to police Iraqis. Our focus is going to be on chasing the Baathist diehards, and the Islamists, and preparing for the next push. (And where is the next push, you ask?) And building bases and settling in for the long haul. I just have this feeling we are not leaving.

The oil industry is going to be rebuilding just like the rest of the country. There is going to be no shortage of jobs, in a country where jobs and actual salaries have been hard to come by. This is going to limit the temptation to kill each other, this and the "autonomous regions", north, central, and south.

Insurgency in Afghanistan is still a problem because the baddies have safe haven in Pakistan, and we are too weak in the region to do more than patrol, and because there is still no work. In Iraq, we will be there in force, and Iraq's neighbors are not going to want to sponsor this kind of trouble. And there will be work.

I will predict this. If the Kurds are given an equitable share in the oil in their region, they will be quiet. Normal banditry, normal mayhem, normal. If they are not given a share, you will have a bloodbath. Kurds versus Kurds versus Turks versus Sunnis versus Americans. We will eventually be driven out. Its very important that the autonomous regions be given a stake in the oil in their own region.