Iraq’s leaders, according to The Economist article, “…trust no one, perpetuating a system not just Machiavellian but outright Hobbesisan. Assassination is still the mostl likely cause of death in Iraqi politics.”

On one hand, we cannot totally withdraw from a country that could easily tilt right back into a Saddam Hussein-like dictatorship but we cannot afford to allow Iran a bigger footprint than they already have.

One big problem underscored in both Economist articles is corruption on a massive scale. Unemployment is officially at 45-50% but in some parts it is 80%. Three in five jobs are held by those working for the government.

The Kurdish north which to my knowledge has around 60,000 well-armed militias, the Peshmerga, are demanding more control over the northern oil fields at Kirkuk. Sectarian dissent stll runs deep and could well boil over once again, especially with an overbearing Shiite regime that is reverting to more forceful measures to control Sunnis whose representation in the al-Maliki government is slowly being purged.

This is a Pandora’s Box that still has untold demons flying out of it. Iraq’s fragile democracy may even dissolve completely once the greedy and corrupt government decides that sharing the oil wealth for the good of the country is not a priority. They have as an example the crumbling middle class in the United States where giant corporations have an even greater grip on our country’s wealth than at any time in history. “See?” say Iraq’s oil barons, “this is how it works.”

Iraq has seen the election of competing parties, it has seen parties grow and die off. The Army has not been used as a tool of massacre. “Natural resource curse” has not occurred because the competition between political forces has kept oil companies from investing; that competition could lead to a compromise solution just as likely as it leads to a single abusive winner. The rapidly evolving political environment means that an “abusive, illiberal, corrupt” government is not established. An uneasy truce, or stasis is a also good bet. Our country lived its first 70 years under a tense, uneasy truce, with a senator nearly murdered in chamber, Federal soldiers killing whiskey makers, and atrocities in the territories.

Your scenario, and my scenario, are both plausible, and neither is the same thing as the actual existence of a murdering thugocracy.

You don’t need the argument that Iraq is in the same place now (or might be in the future) as under Saddam to be right that the U.S. should not have invaded and, second, should not keep occupying.