Throwing Iraq against the wall

As the war's 1,000th day passes, Patrick Cockburn again peers into Iraq's future and sees a good deal of pain to come. After noting the great sway the Badr militia now holds, he concludes,

The ability of the US and Britain to determine the fate of Iraq is growing less by the month. The US is trying to reach out to countries such as Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, which it was ignoring two years ago. There is no more talk of changing the Middle East. British troops have largely withdrawn to their bases around Basra. The Sunni will take part in the election but will continue to try to end the occupation.

Iraq will still remain a name on the map. Baghdad will be difficult to divide, though it is largely a Shia city. Most Iraqi Arabs say they would like to be part of a single country. But the most likely future is for Iraq to become a loose confederation.

I hope I'm not the only one who continues to find this ironic. I know that such a dissolution will probably be messy and unpredictable -- subsequently raising the odds of a regional war in the Middle East -- but surely some Likudniks have to take solace in how easily Iraq has split on its fault lines. Right?

Anyway, there's a good deal of quality reading on the Iraqi election here.