I like your version of the Five Acts. At some points, I’ve wondered, but never really followed up on it, whether extending the metaphor we could have Scenes.

Like Act II, as you point out, is of a magnitude far greater than what came before or after.

Act II Scene i: Bremer’s Viceroyalty. (disbanding of army, de-baathification, de-unionization)
Act II Scene ii: Rise of Insurgency (failure to take note by Americans)
Act II Scene iii: Bombing of Samarra Mosque turns Moqtada al Sadr & Shia death squads against the Sunni as the Civil War takes on a new bloodier phase
Act II Scene iv: Ethnic Cleansing of Baghdad by Shia & increased casualties on American side.
Act III Scene v: The Elections

Something like that maybe?

And yeah, my rosy scenario is very rosy by design.

Another truly remarkable post on war and politics. I do greatly appreciate your pushback against the notion that we are close to any kind of conclusion in Iraq. If we listened to the likes of Peter Feaver, we’ve been at that point since, oh, May 2003.

In that context, my quibble is very minor, but nevertheless here goes. In regards to your (I guess really Ricks’) five Acts, I think the division points you give make sense, but i wish there were some way to give a better sense of the true reality encompassed within each. Ideally it would be quantitative as well as qualitative, including for example the start and end dates and the number of American and Iraqi casualties incurred in each (completed) Act, as well as a conceptual description of what as going on in the country during each. If it did, I think we would see that the description given for Act II rather grossly understates the magnitude of what went on during those years (which given the scope of this post is perfectly understandable; that’s why I wanted to amend this comment). As just one example of what we don’t see reflected in the phrase ” The Rise of the Insurgency and the failure of the US to win the peace phase” as the Act II subtitle is the civil war that occurred. (You do mention it elsewhere in the post.)

Perhaps in lieu of attempting more technically accurate descriptors for Act titles, we could simply opt ofr more evocative language, for example: Act I: Blind into Baghdad (following Fallows); Act II: Iraq’s Long, Dark Night in Hell; Act III: U.S. Doubles Down Irrelevantly As Iraq’s New Strongman Emerges; Act IV Maliki Consolidates Shi’a Dominance, U.S. “Leaves”; Act V: Shi’a Dominance Further Facilitates Rise of newly Authoritarian Iran, “Non-Combat” U.S. Soldiers Remain Indefinitely To Ensure Natural Resource Security.

I don’t think the Shia-stan Iraq or whatever you call it will turn out as well as quickly as Kurdistan. I see Kurdistan heading in a kind of Singapore-esque direction. But as long as Iraq doesn’t go totally Egypt it will be a helluva lot better than the surrounding neighborhood (minus Turkey). I still opposed the thing and certainly opposed so stupidly allowing a giant vacuum to be created. I generally favored something more like a de-centralization or even a separation into different countries (a la VP Biden), if chosen by the people and not imperially done by the West of course. Still I expect Sunni-stan to have a very bad time going forward. Hope I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that’s where it’s headed.

At the end of twenty years in country, it will be a moral abnegation of the first order on our part if the dominant historical analysis of our involvement in Iraq is limited to a simple comparison of two states of affairs there: pre-invasion — Saddam in power, butchering, representing an ethnic minority, violently oppressing the majority; and post-involvement (best-case scenario) — permanent “non-combat” U.S. presence securing natural resources and supporting Iraqi security forces, absurdly corrupt but nominally representative Shi’a-dominated parliamentary government in power, Sunnis legally and electorally oppressed. If what we are doing as citizen observers when or if such a rosy scenario as the second of these unfolds is sitting back and congratulating ourselves for a job well done without taking into account the carnage that we unilaterally (ie without the consent of Iraqis) unleashed on the country in the making of the new reality there, we will be putting on a breathtaking display of historical amnesia and moral arrogance.

Ours is not to decide when the political order in foreign countries have run their course and to go in and use our obscene level of hard-power advantage to bring about, at whatever cost to those directly affected, new political orders conceived in ignorance of the societies to which we are attempting to apply them. Historical change is lethal. It astounds me to see the level of appetite that still remains among many Americans to see the U.S. continue to attempt to play that role in the world.

But that’s a good point you raise about whether Maliki will stay on past his best by date. Or whether down the road there is ever peaceful transfer of power. I could see the country not going as far down that road as say Egypt or now Iran appears to.

What I do think is the Sunni are basically out of power and are going to be left to criminality, joblessness, anger, frustration, and lack of political voice for a long time to come.