The report is out and the suggestions have been made. Some say Bush is formulating his own exit plan. Other say he will not be persuaded by anyone, not even Baker. But in the aftermath of this there still lies a question, what will happen in Iraq?

If we were to assume that an exit of some kind is coming soon, either a complete pull out or a realignment of our troops to specific places within Iraq and the immediate area bordering some of the troubled spots, there is still the situation with Iraq’s military and police forces. We have already seen that whether alone or with U.S. troop support the forces are questionable at best. We know what happens in a vacuum; in the absence of true power it is the little tyrants that will push the envelope. We worry about Al Sauder when we have no real idea what waits in the shadows in Iraq. There are hundreds of people who think their time has come; hundred who believe that their tribe or family or group is owed some sort of power considering what Saddam did to so many for so long.

Don’t misread me, I think we will pull out to some extent, but it is the aftermath of that pull-out that worries me more than our staying and continuing to attempt to gain some favor with the locals. How many times and to what extent do we run back in and quell the insurgency or the civil war. Iraq is precariously balanced between two major local powers, Syria and Iraq, is a country with a government teetering on the brink of unimportance and has not had a stable government that could provide for its people in over 30 years. On the other hand they are also bordered by two allies of the United States, Turkey (although I say allies, this one is questionable at times) and Saudi Arabia, though many might not like it, they are, today, one of our staunchest allies in the area.

There is hope that Iraq may find its George Washington, its Thomas Jefferson, but it is unlikely that any democracy that comes of Iraq on its own will be anything we readily recognized as democracy at all. Although whatever come out of Iraq is bound to be better than what they had prior to Saddam’s removal, this is assuming that Iraq itself survives intact as a nation at all. If that be the case all the better for Middle East security.

However, left to their own devises we are looking at a country quite likely to go the way of Yugoslavia, splitting down the middle, splitting again and possibly, again.  A mistake was made 60 plus years ago when we amalgamated this little part of the world with the help of the Brits in this bastardized country to begin with. So if they split, should we really be amazed that they took it upon themselves to turn into three to five different counties?

It is a real possibility. It is conceivable that literally hundreds of thousands more might die during this split, just as in Yugoslavia. And like the land of the Yugo it will be spurned on by religiously motivated hatred of others beliefs, Sunni vs. Shia etc.

I’m not saying it will or it won’t. I am hardly an expert on mid-east affairs but an uneducated look at history tells us the odds are good that whether we stay or not, this place could revert back to pre-meddling borders.

But what would I know; I’m just an Average American.