Reply #23: Possible Reasons for Continued Attacks

[On the Road]

(1) If the remaining Iraqi government were considered illegitimate, either because of continued manipulation by the US or on more general grounds. (The South Vietnamese government was certainly not left alone after the US pulled the troops out.) This depends largely on how the government behaves.

(2) Revenge killings among the different groups or more general interethnic strife. The former Yugoslavia shows what can happen when groups with a history of bad blood start going at it. Some of the attacks today, like bombing of Shiite mosques or anti-Sunni violence in Tikrit, are arguably ethnically motivated rather than anti-American.

(3) Desire for an independent state, either by the Kurds or Shiites. An autonomous region is not satisfactory to everyone.

(4) Desire to prevent the breakup of Iraq, probably by the Sunnis. The chance of this is greatly increased if the breakaway regions try to take the oil fields with them. (This is pretty much what happened in the Biafran war of the early 70s.)

I'm not saying US troops shouldn't be pulled out. I think Bush made a huge mess, and it's a difficult decision. But there's certainly a risk of continuing of increased violence if the US does pull out.