I also want to make sure that significant numbers of Sunni Arabs don't revert to insurgency:
Iraqi troops using loudspeakers ordered members of an armed Sunni neighborhood group in Baghdad to turn in their weapons Sunday after the arrest of their leader sparked fierce gunbattles with American and Iraqi troops.
The two-day standoff in Fadhil, a ramshackle Sunni enclave on the east bank of the Tigris River where al-Qaida once held sway, appeared to die down temporarily by midday as convoys of U.S. and Iraqi rolled into the neighborhood. But the confrontation threatens to undermine U.S. efforts to stabilize Baghdad before American troops pull out of Iraqi cities by the end of June.
The trouble started Saturday when Iraqi troops arrested the head of Fadhil's Awakening Council for alleged terrorist activity. The arrest triggered fierce gunfights between Iraqi forces and Awakening Council members, killing four people and wounding 15.
Six more people, including four women, were wounded Sunday in sporadic shooting that occurred as U.S. and Iraqi soldiers began sealing off the neighborhood, police and hospital officials said.
The confrontation is important and potentially explosive because the Awakening Councils, also known as Sons of Iraq, are Sunni security volunteers who broke with al-Qaida and joined forces with the Americans — helping to lead to the calm in Baghdad the last year.
I personally think the Sunni Arabs would be fools to restart the war they lost. The Awakening members had to give biometric data and so they'd be easier to track down now. If there is a round two, the Shia and Kurdish majority might decide expulsion is the only safe option for the Sunni Arabs.
Another area of worry is the question of Kirkuk and the larger Kurdish issue:
Seeking to head off an explosion of ethnic violence, the United Nations will call for a power-sharing system of government for Iraq's deeply divided region of Kirkuk in the oil-rich north.
A draft U.N. plan, outlined to The Associated Press by two Western officials, aims to defuse dangerous tensions. Kurds, a majority in the region, have been trying to wrest control from Arabs, Turkomen and other rival ethnic groups. If open warfare breaks out, it could jeopardize the U.S. goal of stability across Iraq before elections at year's end.
Again, I think the Kurds would be fools to alienate the Iraqi central government. Without being part of Iraq--even if the Kurds successfully revolt--the Kurds would be landlocked and surrounded by hostile Turkey, Iran, and Iraq, who would eventually agree to end the new state.
The Kurds have a bright future within Iraq. I hope they understand this. One day, as Czechoslovakia peacefully broke up, the Kurds might do the same. This is not the day.
So I wait patiently to see if we won in Iraq.
And if either of these sore spots erupt into war, al Qaeda would gain fertile ground to return.
Iraq is probably strong enough to endure this challenge and prevail, with our help, but there would be more senseless bloodshed before Baghdad reasserted control. Let's hope saner heads prevail.
UPDATE: Strategypage has a good post about the Sunni Sons of Iraq, the Sunni Arabs in general, and the Kurdish issue:
The Iraqi government promised the Sunni Arab gunmen that they would get jobs, either in the security forces or civilian ones. That did not happen for 80 percent of the Sunni gunmen. The government is dominated by the Kurdish and Shia Arab majority (about 85 percent of the population), which hates the Sunni Arabs and would rather kill than coddle them. Most foreigners don't appreciate the depth of this hatred. Worse, the Kurds and Shia Arabs would welcome another violent showdown with the Sunni Arabs, because the next time, it's generally believed that the Sunni Arabs would lose, and be driven from the country.
The dispute (over who controls 20-30 percent of Iraq's oil production) between the government and the Kurds up around Kirkuk is unresolved and keeps moving towards an attempt to use violence to resolve it. The Kurds are better fighters (better trained, led and disciplined), but are outnumbered by the government (Shia Arab) forces. In this area, the local Sunni Arab gangs and militias will work with the Shia Arabs against a common foe (the Kurds, who are not Arabs, but ethnically related to Iranians and Europeans.) A likely outcome of a fight would be a bloody stalemate, although the Kurds have a shot at short term success.
Of course, staying engaged in Iraq is the best way to make sure we don't have to just hope for the best.
