Three Iraq Wars

Christopher Hitchens:

When people say that they want to end the war in Iraq, I always want to ask them which war they mean. There are currently at least three wars, along with several subconflicts, being fought on Iraqi soil. The first, tragically, is the battle for mastery between Sunni and Shiite. The second is the campaign to isolate and defeat al-Qaida in Mesopotamia. The third is the struggle of Iraq's Kurdish minority to defend and consolidate its regional government in the north.

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Thomas P.M. Barnett agrees:

When people say surge works, they speak of AQM, and when they say it doesn't, they speak of Sunni v. Shiia.

Meanwhile. Kurdistan remains the untold success story increasingly under fire.