I just don't think our being there today is going to prevent any of this from happening tomorrow, even if we defeated the Sunni insurgency, pacified the country, drove out Al-Quada, intimidated the Iranians, and fortified the Shia government in Iraq; and I think it's pretty clear none of those things is going to happen, certainly not all of them. The civil conflict will resume as soon as we leave, and we would be the bad guys if we chose to stay. No body wants us there, even the people who owe us their lives loathe us. I simply cannot think of any historical situation this can be compared to, there are no guides, no examples, no precedents. And I can't think of anything that would happen to make things better, much less how to go about making it happen. It is a highly unstable situation and we are exhausted and lost. We have succeeded in getting life-long enemies to unite in hatred of us.

But the oil is the key, as you say. Other parts of the world produce oil, but the entire middle east has nothing else to sell. And they need Western money as much as the West needs their oil. I fear that this is the only way this will resolve itself. If Iran were an Arab country, even a Shia one, they might replace us as the local cops, but the Sunni Arab states will not allow a Shia Persian occupation of Iraq. It's going to either have to settle itself militarily, or the participants will work out some sort of compromise, like partition. But whatever happens, no one wants to hear what we think about it.