In his latest post, Cousin Don makes the case for leaving Iraq immediately, since the country will inevitably fly apart in any case. Inasmuch as any prediction of the future for Iraq is just that, I cannot contradict anything Don says. I would point, however, to a post on this blog, Diary from Baghdad for a little perspective:

The Iraqis have strong bonds between them, in spite of religion or ethnic differences, we all work together, have neighbors from other religions, visit each other and respect our differences. my neighbors are shias, my best friends are Christians and Kurds and I’m Sunni, but we all have good relations between us. I’m afraid of those who are trying hard to tear us a part, for me I don’t think they will succeed but I’m sure they are from outside Iraq, and they want Iraq to separate into several parts or maybe drag it to civil war. In Iraq’s history for the few past hundreds of years we had no problems with each other so I think those terrorists will lose.

The author is a woman and a civil engineer, writing near perfect English, demonstrating why Iraq has more hope of becoming a modern, pluralistic society than any other Arab nation. On the other hand, the following comes from this post by a woman currently serving her eleventh month in Iraq and demonstrates that the success of this operation will be largely up to the Iraqis:

One point we kept coming back to was whether what we are doing here will last. I think that the reason we came to Iraq was valid. When we first got here, I thought it was good to take Saddam out of power, whatever the reason. I saw the people here and the way they live and I believed that coming here to make things better for them was the right thing to do.
I still think it was right to get rid of Saddam, at least for this country and the people. But after being here and interacting with the people and seeing what I have, there’s something that worries me. I truly believe that freedom isn’t free. There isn’t a country in the world that enjoys a high degree of freedoms that hasn’t had to fight for them. Wars are fought for freedom all the time. I don’t think that democracy can take hold anywhere right away, but it can if the people truly want it. From what I’ve seen here, most of the people are not willing to stand up and fight for it.

[...]

I was standing in front of a formation taking photos of ING soldiers while an ING general was talking to them. As the general was speaking in Arabic, my interpreter was telling me what he was saying. At one point in the speech, he pointed at me and said, "This American woman came thousands of miles from her family to fight for your freedom, shame on us if we cannot stand up and fight."
This is what these people need to hear.

It's worth spending some time reading both Iraqi and Military blogs to get a perspective not offered by the Main Stream Media.