Iraq: Out of the desert into Mosul (closed)

[Dayuhan]

That said, I think the U.S. is making a mistake if we condition security assistance to Iraq on democratic reforms in the Maliki government. If they really want democracy to work they should divide the country into three parts where there is at least a minimum of traditional homogeneity.

I suspect that this is what they are in the process of doing right now. It's ugly, and I expect it will get uglier before it's done. It's also not in our control. I don't know that it ever was.

Gen Petraeus asked in 2003 "tell me how this ends". I guess we're finding out... and I suspect that once we selected "installing Democracy" as an objective, this ending, or some variation on the theme, was pretty much inevitable.