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This was a good series of articles, and it documents the decisions that made (good and bad) in Iraq. What it misses is the angle of Tribalism that pervades the culture of the middle east - my family, my clan, my tribe over all others.
This is the reason that the army and Baathist civil service was disbanded - would you really want a minority Sunni officer corps running the army? or a government run by primarily ex-Baathist officals with no loyality?
Looking back, what should have been done was to disband the army - but Pay the men as a "provisional" service to be reformed in the future. Now that the ministries have been taken over by the factions - distributing all the jobs, money and positions to their cronies and relatives, there is little to do but start over.
What has devolved in Iraq is a new political order - parties with supporting militias for muscle fighting over control of their section of the country. Sadr and his Iranian backers trying to muscle the Hawza into control over the Shia south, The Kurds and their Pesmerga in control of the north, the Sunnis fighting to regain their lost power (and some oil near Kirkuk) and the Jihadis trying to get everyone to kill everyone (Shias being the preferred target).
"Reality" based policy at this point would be to chose sides in this free for all and go after the militias of the other side and eliminate them. Unless these private armies are stamped out, there will be no freedom in Iraq. Mr Al-Sadrs crew seems the most logical group to take out first - this time with their leader as the main target. (as should have been done two years ago).
One other comment - I see too many people take a one dimensional view of the middle east as just being an oil pump (it's all about oil). I assure you that the people of this region really do want a life like everyone else - and I find it amazing that the comparison to the civil rights struggle has never been made in relation to freeing these people from the abysmal governments of the region.
But then, we can have the stability of the "progressive" Chinese situation in Darfur where we all just look the other way where people are slaughtered - because there, it is all about oil.
