Forget September 2007 or the spring 2008, the Democratic Party hasn’t got the stones to confront this Administration on Iraq and they never will. So, given this reality, the question now is what Iraq will look like in a year. (Hey, if Jonah Goldberg can give an opinion, so can I. I may not be as well educated but I’m correct more often.) There will be more dead Americans – 4,500 to 5,000. Maliki will be gone. Elections will not go as smoothly as in the past and will be more violent. Parliament will continue to fragment. We will still have 100,000 troops on the ground, although the Administration will be bragging that they are reducing troops so as to negate the Iraq issue at election time – boy did the Democrats screw the pooch on that one. The sectarian violence will increase. The civil war will ultimately become a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran with us supplying the Sunni’s via Saudi Arabia. (Ironically, we will ultimately side with the Sunnis in the civil war, the very people we ousted from power, and ignore the Kurds, our true friends.)
Turkey will assert greater influence in northern Iraq, Iran in southern and central Iraq, and Saudi Arabia in western Iraq. Both American Presidential candidates will support positions that recognize America has to maintain a military force in Iraq for an undetermined time. The projected costs of the war will be upped to exceed $1.5 trillion.
In many ways though, nothing of substance will be different than today. The names might change but the story will remain the same. The political process will drag and our troops will continue to sit in harm’s way waiting for Iraqi politicians to resolve their disputes, which will be next to impossible given their hardened positions and inability to reach compromise.
Unfortunately, we opened Pandora’s Box and once opened cannot be closed until the evil released has run its course. The evil released in Iraq was the creation of a power vacuum and the question as to who will fill it is hampered by the fact that all sides want to fill the vacuum, no side wants to share it, and no side is willing to compromise. And, until those issues are resolved by compromise, which is unlikely, or civil war, which is occurring, there is nothing America can do about it and to think otherwise is naïve arrogance with a dash of insanity.