US to leave Iraq to Civil War - End Game now clear

Civil War in Iraq? Not a problem. Spencer Akerman writes of David Ignatius' article in The Washington Post. Ackerman states

Ignatius's contention is that civil war--which, only months ago, hawks argued would never come about--wouldn't be the end of the argument:

Pessimists increasingly argue that Iraq may be going the way of Lebanon in the 1970s. I hope that isn't so, and that Iraq avoids civil war. But people should realize that even Lebanonization wouldn't be the end of the story. The Lebanese turned to sectarian militias when their army and police couldn't provide security. But through more than 15 years of civil war, Lebanon continued to have a president, a prime minister, a parliament and an army. The country was on ice, in effect, while the sectarian battles raged. The national identity survived, and it came roaring back this spring in the Cedar Revolution that drove out Syrian troops.

My prediction is that it will not come to that.

What is going to happen is that the Shiite-dominated government of Iraq is going to request the U.S. troops leave Iraq. They will time it so that the Bush administration can declare victory and get out before the November 2006 American elections.

The Sunni-dominated insurgents will continue their attacks, attempting to destabilize the Iraqi government so that they can return to power. The Iraqi government will turn to their co-religionists in Iran for military support.

The Sunnis and Kurds will be purged from the Iraqi troops, police and government. Then the remaining Iraqi military will pacify the Sunni insurgent areas and will take control of Kurdistan. The civil war will be ended rather decisively.

The end result is going to be an Iranian-dominated Iraq and a Shiite fundamentalist religious government across the center of the Middle East.

I'd bet good money that this has already been decided between the Iraqi government and the Iranian government.

On the assumption that Ahmed Chalabi has been an Iranian covert asset for two decades, I'd also bet that he ends up with a powerful position in the post-war Iraqi government shortly after the U.S. is kicked out requested to leave.

The government will be a democracy under theological control, like that of Iran, and the economy will not be anything close to a laissez faire free market one as the NeoCons had hoped to establish. It will be a demonstration project for the Middle East, but not for western values. The NeoCon dream has already failed, resting as it does on the incompetence of the Bush administration.

Anyway, that's how I see it playing out.