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[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
Hmmmm....

Thousands have been killed in or around Baghdad in the past two years, right? And that violence according to Mr. Rosen has been almost entirely Shia on Sunni, right?

So then it would seem that, as the last pockets of Sunni leave, then the violence in Baghdad has a very short remaining shelf life. Once the Shia have the city, which Rosen warns they imminently will, the violence would end there. It will be a Shia city, but it will be non-violent. That would be cause for optimism, wouldn't it?

Any future violence there would likely be Sunni on Shia, since the Shia would have no need to attack themselves or purge their own kind from the city. And since we're working with the Sunnis right now, wouldn't that mean we are the ones supporting the violence which undermines the very "Government" we're trying to build? If that's the case, I'd say we have a shadow agenda over there, which never involved an early withdrawal, and was actually intended to ensure we'd have a Middle East presence forever. That's insanely cynical, isn't it? That would mean Cheney knew the place was a quagmire going in. I mean, you'd almost have to have videotape of the guy admitting it's a quagmire years earlier to believe something like that...

I don't know the answer, but Rosen sounds like he's riffing aimlessly and a bit more strident than one ought to be giving the commentary he is.

I generally would ascribe what you see over there to incompetence and good intentions, rather than insanely cynical conspiracy theories born of the worst of intentions. YMMV.