The Young Turks

So, everyone is happy, right? Not exactly. This frustrates the will of the American people who say in poll after poll that they want to leave Iraq within the year (which they have been saying for well over a year now, which means we should have left already, theoretically). But much, much more importantly, it also frustrates the will of opposing parties, sects and militias inside Iraq.

The Iraqi reaction is more important because they are the ones likely to strike back with violence. Their dissatisfaction usually gets manifested in the form of bombs and bullets.

Some of these local groups in Iraq had worked with us for over a year now (the first campaign with the Sunni tribal leaders was started by Col. MacFarland in June, 2006 (before the so-called surge began by the way). But the understanding among the Sunnis and the Shiites who co-operated with us was that we would - at some point - leave.

How they were going to settle their own differences at that point was a different matter. But they stopped attacking us in part because they thought it was pointless. Why bother attacking an army that was going to leave anyway? And if they worked with us instead we would give them money and arms - which they could use later to assert control over Iraq (or at least the parts they were interested in).

But what happens when we announce we are not going to leave? That instead we will have an enduring presence? And we announce that we will be building American bases literally right on top of their oil fields? And we will be backing the Maliki government to the exclusion of all other domestic groups?

Well, I'll tell you what happens. We restart the Iraqi insurgency. What a terrible idea.

I think Defense Secretary Robert Gates has done a phenomenal job so far. His record of success highlights what an abject failure Don Rumsfeld was, even more than we realized (if that's possible).

Secretary Gates has cooled off war talk regarding Iran, provided a counter-balance to Vice President Cheney's overly-aggressive and overly-optimistic war stances, and managed to cool off the Iraqi insurgency in a relatively short period of time. Man, Rumsfeld should have been fired years and years ago. President Bush's obstinance has gotten an untold number of people killed (I know that's obvious, but this is another painful reminder).

But all of this good work by Gates stands to be washed away by this latest decision. I don't know who is responsible for this deal with Maliki (though I would guess Cheney since he is the one obsessed with having bases on top of Iraqi oil fields). Ultimately, of course, the president is responsible. And it's yet another bad call by The Decider.

I sense from reading the news coming out of Iraq in the last two weeks that push back has already begun based on this news. Violent attacks have made more headlines in the last two weeks than they did in the last two months. But it's far too early to judge and the numbers aren't in yet.

My prediction is that the violence will start to ramp up again. The rest of the power players in Iraq aren't going to sit around and let Maliki run Iraq with unfettered control. They're also not going to tolerate an enduring American presence. Or the one thing we haven't even mentioned yet - to make the deal even a little sweeter for us (that's read Cheney) - American companies get preferential treatment for contracts with the Iraqi government. Yeah, Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army are going to love the Exxon-Mobil clause in this deal.

Speaking of Sadr, he made a deal to not attack US forces or opposing militias for six months. An implicit part of that deal was that the US would eventually leave Iraq. Now that we have squelched on our end of the deal and the six months is nearly up anyway, warm up the war engine. Here comes Moqtada.

I could be wrong. Iraq could be pacified. Sadr might not be angling to run Iraq. The unresolved issues between the warring sects in Iraq could just die down and melt away as people get used to the lower levels of violence. Maliki could gain control and impose his will on the country. And we could sit on top of the Iraqi oil fields forever. But I doubt it.

I think the opposite will happen. I think we have made a very large mistake with this deal. And it's now Maliki and Bush versus the rest of Iraq. And it isn't going to be pretty.

This will be our third and final mistake in Iraq.  Not counting the original invasion and the bone-headed idea of not bringing in enough troops to impose order on the country, our two largest mistakes were disbanding the Iraqi Army and Abu Ghraib.

Both of those events caused huge spikes in the insurgency. The disbanded Iraqi army, of course, turned around attacked us since we didn't provide for them and were working against their interests. And Abu Ghraib galvanized Iraqi public opinion against us by showing Americans humiliating Iraqis. It wasn't the torture (of course, authorized by Rumsfeld, by the way) as much as it was the sense of humiliation that Iraqis felt at the hands of the Americans.

But under the leadership of Gates, we had made some progress in getting beyond these old mistakes. Things weren't going to turn out lovely in Iraq under any scenario, but some of the damage could have been contained.

We could have left with some degree of dignity and a modicum of success (or at least less of a failure than before) . Instead we got greedy and tried to hang on to all the oil, and we will pay a price for this. Now, we'll have to leave under much worse conditions and it will seem like we got pushed out of the country instead of leaving on our own terms. Because that is what's going to happen. We are going to get pushed out.

This prediction is made very early on in the game. In fact, I made it on-air on our show the day I heard about the deal. Now, we get to watch and see what happens. Am I an alarmist? Will everything be alright after all? Or will things unravel as I say here? Only one way to find out, let's watch the third act of the Iraqi insurgency and see how this war ends. If I were you, I wouldn't bank on a happy ending.

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