Friday, November 10, 2006

Iraq on autopilot

With the Democrats now in a position to start calling the shots on Iraq and Rumsfeld essentially out of the picture, my suspicion is that Iraq and its government will now be on autopilot. Since the Democrats want to get out of Iraq ASAP, not much will happen in Iraq except to the degree that Iraq's fledgling government takes matters into its own hands. This is actually a very good thing.

We've given the Iraqis several years to get used to governing themselves and living without their lives under Saddam Hussein's thumb. It's not at all clear that coddling them for a few more years would really help, and might hurt.

My expectation is that within six months we can expect that Iraq will formally "demand" that the U.S. begin departure. In two to four months from today we could see Iraq "order" the U.S. to move out of Baghdad, or to at least cease patrols and checkpoints and guard duties.

Progress to date has been very spotty at best, but the pace will likely pick up dramatically as the Iraqis begin to more deeply grasp the extent to which their destiny is in their own hands.

-- Jack Krupansky

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