What's Gonna Happen in Iraq?

I've read a few books and I watch the talking heads on the idiot box (TV) and I have a store of thoughts of my own. So with this limited information, what do I think is going to happen in Iraq?

The simple answer to that question is chaos.

Will we send in more troops? Maybe, but it might take another 300,000 soldiers to truly shut down lawlessness and sectarian fighting. (Geez - sounds like Johnson and Nixon escalating the Vietnam war to finally achieve "victory.") There are some real challenges for a plan of that magnitude. First, an occupying force of that magnitude requres reinstating the draft. It also requires a massive increase in defense spending. It probably means that we have to walk away from other obligations around the world - Asia, Europe, you pick. And even with a huge increase in the occupying force there is a strong chance that shortly after we leave (in 10 or 20 years) the chaos will return. And while we are deployed in this fashion we will be loathed by the rest of the Islamic world.

Should Iraq be split into pieces? If so, I'm not sure there is really a homeland for the Sunnis. And without a Sunni homeland, the Saudis will be very unhappy. An unhappy Saudi royal family is a big problem. The question assumes some sort of right or wrong choice and I'm not sure it's going to matter. It looks to me like Iraq may split into pieces regardless how the question is answered.

What should we do? My first thought is that we probably ought to apologize to Israel, the Iraqi people and the rest of the world for starting down this path without having a clue as to what we were doing and for making such massive and stupid decisions that contributed to this mess. We probably ought to apologize to the United Nations for standing in front of them and telling them we were going to disarm a mad man, but then having no plan for the aftermath. After that, I think we ought to plan a 6 to 10 month exit for our military forces. And we ought to put our diplomatic corps to work trying to find political solutions to the numerous problems that will surely follow our withdrawal.

What will happen in Iraq? Most likely chaos. The real question is what should happen after the chaos. It's time to start concentrating on what a partitioned Iraq will look like. If we don't, we will effectively cede all influence to Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, sub-national groups (ala Hezbollah and Hamas in Lebanon) and pan-national groups (think Al Qaeda).

We will soon have a worse and more intractable problem than that of the Palestinians.

The more academic question is what might have happened?

It still seems to me that if the American people had been:

1) told the truth from the start that we wanted to export democracy, that such an effort would require time, treasure, and some of our youth;
2) led by someone that would unite the country behind a strong common vision - a person that could have convinced the American people of wisdom and need for investing ourselves in this effort; and
3) represented in key offices in Washington and Iraq by men and women that were not blinded by pure inbred ideology;

there might have been a chance for success in Iraq. Unfortunately, none of those things are true. And what is worse large-scale national efforts rarely rise above their initial strategic vision. Our initial vision and strategy was not well explained and allowed many different visions to grow up around the effort - get Sadam, get WMD, spread democracy, get the oil, threaten Iran, respond to Islamic terrorism, respond to 911, establish the principles of unilateralism and preemption. When you build a vision the same way you build an election year political coalition, you run a very big chance of having that vision fall apart if major elements of the vision prove false or begin to conflict with one another. For that reason, visions need to be much better understood and much more coherent.