I came across a quote by Nouri al Maliki that really disturbed me:
I'm not afraid, but I have to watch the army, because those still loyal to the previous regime may start planning coups.
http://rawstory.com/...
One of the benchmarks for withdrawal from Iraq has been to prepare and train the Iraqi military to pick up the slack when our military leaves. This has been nearly a no-brainer proposition which both sides of the debate readily accept. It has also been almost as single-mindedly accepted that we have not met that goal.
Now we learn that the Iraqi prime minister mistrusts the very same military we must enable in order to leave. This is not good. I don't see how we can ever meet this benchmark if there is no trust. Without trust there will be resistance and pushback to any efforts on our part to strengthen their military and make them more powerful.
I can see no fix to this situation. Trust is very difficult to build, and its probably impossible to do as an outside, third party trying to instill it between others.
What this tells me is this - keeping our military in Iraq will solve nothing unless we intend to stay forever. One month, 6 months, a year or two more won't help build the trust necessary to enable the Iraqi army to stand on its own. As long as we stay we will continue to be the cork in the bottle of mistrust. And without the army, theirs or ours, this house of cards crumbles.
There is no end in sight to this mess. We need to bring our troops home.