Will A Civil War Breakout In Iraq Again?

U.S. Army Sgt. Nathaniel Adams gives instructions to Pfc. Joshua Manley during a recent combined reconnaissance patrol in the industrial sector of the town of Taza, with counterparts of the Iraqi police, May 16, 2009, in Kirkuk, Iraq. The two are cavalry scouts assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division's 4th Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Heavy Brigade Combat Team. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Gustavo Olgiati

U.S. Prepares To Withdraw, Iraqi Resistance Prepares For Battle -- L.A. Times

'There will be a war in Baghdad,' warns a leader. Insurgents are bitter about the lack of progress since laying down their arms. Their demands have been unmet, they say, and now the U.S. is leaving.

Reporting from Baghdad -- Baghdad will burn, the resistance leader warns.

"If we hear from the Americans they are not capable of supporting us . . . within six hours we are going to establish our groups to fight against the corrupt government," says the commander, a portly man with gold rings and lemon-colored robes who, perhaps understandably, spoke on condition of anonymity. "There will be a war in Baghdad."

The commander and another insurgent leader interviewed for this story belong to the secret world of Sunni Muslim tribesmen and old military officers who laid down their arms and helped bring relative peace to Iraq in the last two years. They decided to try to fight the Shiite religious parties in control of the government through political channels instead -- but they never renounced the insurgency.

Read more ....

Update: Iraq violence rises as U.S. pullout nears. -- Washington Times

My Comment: Is this all talk .... or all bluster? For the moment, this is all talk .... but the groundwork is now being laid to resume a sectarian conflict that was stopped by the American surge 2 years ago.

My fear is that since the bloodletting that broke out between Iraq's different religious and ethnic groups did not reach any sort of conclusion in 2007 .... old animosities and religious hatreds can easily break out again.

I would assume that the U.S. administration knows this, and are confident that the Iraq Army would be able to stop any sectarian conflict. But I am not too sure of this .... especially when I read articles like this.

President Obama has made it clear that he has no interest to stay in Iraq .... and because he was elected by the American people on this platform, he is now fulfilling his mandate to get out ASAP. I personally think this is a mistake. Iraq and the stability of the region is a matter of national security for the United States and its allies. An unstable Iraq will naturally be a threat to this national security ... and we will in turn have to respond.

This can all be easily avoided .... but I do not think the White House (nor the Iraq Government) have gone through the trouble of calculating the consequences of their actions. I hope that I am wrong .... but from where I standing it appears that decisions are being made more out of political considerations .... and that what happens after the U.S. leaves will be unfortunate, but it will not be the responsibility of the U.S.