Some of the best in the business have already discussed the convergence between the withdrawal time line being negotiated by the Bush administration and Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki and the decline of the Sons of Iraq. Two observations: One, when will a reporter ask John McCain, who has called withdrawal surrender, if he thinks President Bush is surrendering? If he isn't, why has McCain been using foreign policy to score cheap political points? (That last question is rhetorical).
Two, for everyone trumpeting the Surge as the main cause for the reduction in violence in Iraq, the fact that the U.S. has put 103,000 former/potential insurgents on our payroll is probably as much of a factor as adding 30,000 U.S. troops to the field, as discussed here.
But it does seem clear that the Sunni Sons of Iraq are headed for some kind of conflict with the Shiite controlled government, which is loathe to follow through on its promise to give them jobs and integrate them into the conventional military. What's key is that the presence of American troops and General Petraeus doesn't seem to have much of an effect on that dynamic. The government has already started to detain members of SOI. If U.S. troops leave, they will continue doing so. The U.S. can continue to pay them and continue to pressure the government to integrate them, but at the end of the day, military force does not address the underlying power relationship creating the conflict.
--Tim Fernholz
