It is always easy to find parallels if one is not overly concerned with details. A couple of major differences between iraq and Sicily: (1) Syracuse was a democracy - there was no ideological reason for the Athenian invasion. (2) There is no evidence that I have seen that the US went to war in Iraq over oil or bases - the imperialis argument, in this case doesn't hold. Finally, with all due respect to Paul Hughes who is a friend, nobody in his right mind would argue that the counterinsurgency and inter-factional warfare should be primarily an American show. The Petraeus strategy, as I understand it, is to strengthen Iraqi capabilities in the near term by putting US forces on the ground cheek by jowl with the Iraqis while exapnding the training program for the long term. (Obviously very oversimplified....)