Iraq summary and the future

Patrick Cockburn neatly summarizes the Iraq War and what might be next. In short, Iraq first suffered the 2003 US invasion, then the Sunni Arab guerilla campaign against US troops (which killed or wounded 35,000 US troops) in 2003-2007, and at the same time (2003-2007) there has been a devastating Sunni-Shia civil war which left tens of thousands dead and 5 million displaced. The Shia won the civil war. The Sunni insurgents then switched sides to ally themselves to their former US enemies, out of both revulsion toward Al-Qaeda and facing defeat by the Shia. Now those Sunnis are supposed to be reintegrated into the Iraqi forces, but they are not safe as the Shia-led government knows they are in a way enemies.
With the American withdrawal, there might be war between the Kurds and the Arabs; the Kurds feel threatened because they are weakened by the departure of the US, to which they are allied.

Excerpt:

Iraqis will not come to love each other in the foreseeable future, but this does not necessarily mean they will try to kill each other. Iraqis have seen two wars since 2003. The first was waged by the Sunni Arabs against the US occupation. The Sunni guerrillas were highly effective and killed or wounded 35,000 American troops. The second conflict was a sectarian civil war between the Sunni and Shia communities which left tens of thousands dead and five million displaced. It was fought because after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein the Shia (60 per cent of Iraqis) had allied themselves to the Americans to displace the Sunni (20 per cent) as the predominant community in control of the Iraqi state. Both these wars are now over and both had winners and losers. The Shia defeated the Sunni and Baghdad is now at least three-quarters Shia. Much of the Sunni middle and professional class fled to Jordan and Syria and is unlikely to return. Facing defeat by the Shia and in revulsion against al-Qa’ida, the Sunni insurgents switched sides and allied themselves to their former American enemies. With their identities known and facing Iraqi government security forces 600,000-strong these ex-insurgents are unlikely to be willing or able to go back to war.

The one war which might still take place is between the Kurds and the Arabs. The Kurds were the heart of the old opposition to Saddam Hussein. They also had a stroke of luck in 2003. The Turks refused to join the US invasion of northern Iraq or allow their own territory to be used for an attack. The Iraqi Kurds, somewhat to the Americans’ surprise, became the main US allies. The Kurds advanced south, taking Kirkuk and Nineveh, mixed Kurdish-Arab provinces outside what became the highly autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government. They found they had bitten off more than they could digest. The Kurds are now very nervous as their power starts to decline as the Americans depart, the Arabs of northern Iraq organize themselves and the central government in Baghdad becomes militarily and politically stronger. “This is the day every day Kurd was afraid of,” lamented a Kurdish observer in Sulaimaniyah. “Once more we are alone and face to face with Baghdad.”