160,000 U.S. soldiers occupying Iraq, which is "moving in the direction of a failed state."

[ProSense]

Iraq calmer, but more divided

The U.S. troop buildup has brought down violence, but that has failed to spark cooperation among politicians. If anything, the country appears more balkanized into ethnic and sectarian enclaves.

By Ned Parker, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
December 10, 2007

BAGHDAD -- The U.S. troop buildup in Iraq was meant to freeze the country's civil war so political leaders could rebuild their fractured nation. Ten months later, the country's bloodshed has dropped, but the military strategy has failed to reverse Iraq's disintegration into areas dominated by militias, tribes and parties, with a weak central government struggling to assert its influence.

In the south, Shiite Muslim militias are at war over the lucrative oil resources in the Basra region. To the west, in Anbar province, Sunni Arab tribes that once fought U.S. forces now help police the streets and control the highways to Jordan and Syria. In the north, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens are locked in a battle for the regions around Kirkuk and Mosul. In Baghdad, blast walls partition neighborhoods policed by Sunni paramilitary groups and Shiite militias.

"Iraq is moving in the direction of a failed state, a highly decentralized situation -- totally unplanned, of course -- with competing centers of power run by warlords and militias," said Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group. "The central government has no political control whatsoever beyond Baghdad, maybe not even beyond the Green Zone."

The capital's Green Zone mirrors the chaos outside. Once the base of Saddam Hussein's dictatorial regime, it is now the seat of Iraq's fractured and dysfunctional representative government. The U.S. troop buildup was intended to help Iraq's national leaders overcome differences and give them space to pass compromise measures to end the country's sectarian war, but lawmakers remain divided and continue to harbor suspicions about each other's motives.

<...>

Across Baghdad and central Iraq, the relative calm is linked to the Americans' alliances with Sunni paramilitary groups and Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr's freeze on his Mahdi Army's operations, but no one knows whether the fighters on both sides are just biding their time until the U.S. military leaves and using this interim period to organize themselves.

<...>

There, the Anbar Awakening Council, an alliance of tribes that turned against the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq, has picked a feud with the main Sunni political bloc, the Iraqi Accordance Front.

more

According to icasualties.org, 5 U.S. soldiers have been killed to date in December. What are U.S. troops doing there?

Every week, 200 or more Iraqis are being killed (that we know about):

Sunday 9 December: 23 dead
Saturday 8 December: 26 dead
Friday 7 December: 32 Dead
Thursday 6 December: 23 dead
Wednesday 5 December: 45 dead
Tuesday 4 December: 26 dead
Monday 3 December: 27 dead
Sunday 2 December: 22 dead
Saturday 1 December: 63 dead
Friday 30 November: 17 dead
Thursday 29 November: 30 dead
Wednesday 28 November: 16 dead
Tuesday 27 November: 71 dead
Monday 26 November: 19 dead

The U.S. military has warned that a massive return of refugees could rekindle sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites and that some returnees have found their Baghdad homes occupied by members of the other Muslim sect.

[TwilightGardener]

1. The troops will be victims of their success, because they're the glue

that's holding the structure together, and the buffer between the factions. If they leave, it falls apart. Everyone knows this, but Chimpy and the GOP are going to try to take a victory lap anyway. Chimpy got his wish--Iraq is out of the headlines until the end of his term, people aren't upset about the war as long as it seems to be going well, and the REAL shit will hit the fan in 2009. I couldn't hate these fucking bastards more.

[Flatulo]

2. Sweet irony

Iraq may need a strongman in charge to avoid fracturing.

Y'know, like Saddam.

[malaise]

3. Many more were killed today n/t

[ProSense]

4. Kick! n/t