What's to come in Iraq

Well, perhaps we need be more specific, especially when we recognize that "Iraq" seems more and more to be almost a figment of our imagination.  This CSM report from Mosul indicates that things in "Iraq"'s north are set to become very nasty as the US pulls out.  The Sunni insurgency is alive and quite well; the local Sunni population do not trust the central government in Baghdad; and the local police force is poorly trained, corrupt, and prone to alcohol and drug abuse.

Some of the locals interviewed assert that what the country needs is a new Saddam Hussein - in other words, a Sunni strongman who can take charge of the country, crush the Shia who currently control the government in Baghdad, and in the process put a dent in Iran's aspirations to dominate Iraq.

Of course, what we're going to hear stateside are exclamations from the Obama administration and the US military brass along the lines of the US army colonel (Texan, no less) in charge of training the local police:

"We're starting to see the fruits of [our] labors . . . . Victory! I'm starting to taste it!"

The increasingly clueless American public (most of whom seem more concerned with the fates of Lebron James and Lindsay Lohan than with the fates of fellow citizens serving in Iraq and Afghanistan) have had their collective awareness of what's happening in Iraq numbed by the mainstream media's decision to more or less blow off covering the situation there.  (After all, the "Surge" worked, right?  Aren't we just mopping up there?) (Along these lines, see this interesting post to The Atlantic by Dominic Tierney.)

I'm afraid they're in for a very rude awakening - if, of course, most of them notice at all.