Do you guys have a crystal ball and some on the ground and intimate about what is going on in Iraq.
I don't know wether our troop presence there is settling things, or wether sheer exhaustion and perhaps some cholera is doing the trick, or perhaps consolidation of power by the various factions.
Regardless, the historicc admonitions of the foundersagainst foreign entaglements still aply, as does the general principle thatpeople prefer to be ruled by their own group as opposed to a foreign intruder.
It is also generally true that knowledge about a place and people decreases with the square of the distance. The assertions that both of you make are no more valid than my dismal understanding of the culture and motivations of the myriad of participants in Iraq's violent theater .