(AP Photo)This week, U.S. troops leave Iraq's cities. On a more petroleum-based note -- it is the Middle East after all -- the country will also begin auctioning rights to its oil fields.
However, six-plus years later, and there is no guarantee of anywhere near a clean, outright exit for the American military. Who really knows if the militias of the country will begin a revenge campaign against one another.
And as far as that cursed black gold, oil pipelines and fields could simply end up as targets. The Iraqi forces will have enough on their hands as it is. Forces like the Awakening, who were paid by U.S. forces; Moqtada al-Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army; and those posers called al Qaeda in Iraq will keep the reborn nation's military plenty occupied.
It could be that Sunnis and Shiites may just find a reason to fight. All over the world, the power of the gun too often is the final arbiter, and those two clashing groups are no different.
Not to be forgotten are the Kurds -- who are an island amongst themselves living on top of a resource-rich province. Oddly enough, it seems the ones in Iraq the U.S. pays attention to, but the ones Turkey fights in its own country are not on the American radar. Either way, the Kurdish militia known as the pesh merga and the many people dreaming of a Kurdistan will not fade from the international community anytime soon.
With this uncomfortable mesh of people and competing priorities, and no WMDs to be found, I'm only left with six words: What the fuck were we thinking?
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