[haku]

Originally Posted by nath

Do you call that Resistance?

I call that a tragedy. One which could have been avoided.

Most of those people would still be alive if the country had not been invaded, and i don't think that 600,000 dead is a fair price to pay to remove a dictator (or even to avenge the 3,000 dead of the WTC attack). If the US really had to remove the Iraqi regime, they should have come up with a much better plan.

And they can't say that they "didn't know". Everybody who knew the region and Iraq in particular had warned the Americans that the country would break into civil war, the scenario we're seeing today was described in details to them back in 2002 (even by the British) when they were starting to plan the invasion, they were warned.
If you're going to invade a country made up of several rival ethnic groups which is only held together by a dictatorial regime, you *must* have a well prepared post-war plan to avoid anarchy. The US had none.

Now, the partition of Iraq in 3 parts seem to be the only exit to the current situation, but even the partition will raise new problems.

The Shia part will have most of the petrol resources, and will be a satellite of Iran.

The Sunni part won't have any resources at all, and since the Sunnis were the ones in power before the invasion, they will continue to be quite angry with the new situation, i don't see them stopping violence anytime soon. Plus, there isn't much difference between Iraqi Sunnis and Syrian Sunnis, so Syria will control more or less the Sunni part, Syria may even be tempted by an annexation after the Americans are gone.

The Kurdish part will have significant resources (and therefore money) which will be seen as a threat by Turkey, and possibly Iran. Both countries include a part of Kurdistan and the independance of the Iraqi part will be seen as a possible first step toward a full independant Kurdistan. If Turkey feels really threatened (and it doesn't take much for Turkey to feel threatened), it may very well invade the Kurdish part in a preemptive strike (the excuse would be to "protect" the Turkomans, Turk-related people embedded in Iraqi Kurdish territory, Turkey has already mentioned how they were "oppresed" to prepare the road for a possible invasion).