Commentary: SO..HOW'RE THINGS GOING IN IRAQ???

As usual, Joshuapundit attempts to get to the story behing the story, and relate things into a pattern. So how's the great experiment in Iraq going? Apparently both good and bad.

On a military basis, the American military is wiping the floor with the Jihadists...and the only question is whether, aided by the Leftist press in America and elsewhere the terrorists can outlast the US forces and the Iraqi forces until when and if support for the war on the home front is sufficiently undermined.


On a political front, things are somewhat different. The Iraqis have actually put together a constitution in an amaazingly short period and are set to ratify it in free elections.

But here's the fly in the ointment:

The majority of Sunnis still dislike the idea of merely being equal to Shiites and Kurds in a federation after being top dawgs for so long. And apparently, they are rattling the cages outside the country and seeking help from their allies, as shown when the Saudi Foreign Minister weighed in that our policies were threatening to ignite civil war in Iraq :Saudi Warns U.S. Iraq May Face Disintegration - New York Times
Of course, it IS the New York Times so much of the hyperbole can be discounted, but the fact remains that the Saudis are stepping up to the plate for their Sunni pals and pushing the Bush Administration to put the brakes on the new contitution. Nice of 'em, eh?

In a related development Grand Ayatollah Sistani has instructed his Shiite followers to vote FOR the constitution in the coming referendum: FOXNews.com - U.S. & World - Bus Bomb Kills Five; Shiite Backs Constitution In following this story, it's been obvious that most of the Kurds and Shiites have no problem with the new constitution...but that many of the Sunnis still have illusions of bringing things back where they were before Sadaam.

Obviously, neither the Sunnis nor the Saudis have an interest in seeing a democratic Iraq with the despised Shiites having any kind of power.

In response to the terrorism by Sunni and foreign elements like the Karbala massascre,the Shiites have developed their own armed militias, on a par with the Kurd's Persh Merga Army as reported on these pages earlier in the week.This is a highly significant development. The Shiites are not going to lay down for the Sunnis anymore. Either are the Kurds.

Important to remember in all this is that Iraq is essentially an artificial construction, created by the British in 1922 along lines basically drawn in the sand.

I feel all this is coming to a head fairly quickly.

Either the Sunnis will decide that being part of a new, democratic Iraq is important to them or they won't. In any event, the Constitution WILL be ratified and we will either see a Democratic Iraq as it now stands, or an independent Kurdistan in the north and an independent Shiite republic in the South, both friendly to the US...along with an impoverished, oil poor Sunni enclave in the middle. We'll just have to see whether ethnic hatred is stronger than freedom and an actual betterment in daily life. Being as it's the Middle East, I wouldn't bet the house against ethnic hatred triumphing with the Iraqi Sunnis.