I am unwilling to go out on a limb and make predictions concerning the future divisions of Iraq. There are too many players with competing interests. Only a tyrant like Saddam Hussein could have held disparate ethnic groups like that together in a “state”, and I don’t think the West was unhappy with his “order” for much of his career; after all, they helped engineer his rise. The Western nation-states arose in particular historical circumstances which were at times pretty violent and ugly, and were unsettled even into the twentieth century. It is therefore predictable that nation-state ideas imposed by imperial powers on nomadic tribes would not achieve legitimacy.

I do not believe there was ever any intention by the American administration to make a “democracy” out of Iraq, unless it was the sort that American likes, which is a legislature or executive that will go on the payroll. Those who understand this are always quick to point out the “concern” of Washington with Iraq and its lack of “concern” with Sudan.

The Americans will leave in some measure but rest assured that this prediction will come true: the United States will be left with military installations and some long-term lease. Iraq will serve as a nice central position for protecting its interests in the Middle East against the rising needs of India or China or elsewhere. Unless someone has evidence to the contrary I believe you’ll find that contractors are building installations of a durable nature in Iraq.

With present technology fossil fuels are the key to power, and the United States can no longer afford to leave so much of the proven oil reserves unprotected, or for that matter available to someone else. I may be wrong, and these figures change almost weekly, but I think that Iraq and Iran account for about 20% of known reserves.

Israel will continue its remarkable relationship with the United States even if oil is no longer in the picture, in the same way that the English-speaking parts of the world do with the US, because of historical relationships with prime ethnic groups. The UK has tied itself to our interests since we overtook their influence in the twentieth century, and they are related to the oldest and still potent power-elites in America. The Jews make up, by their own reckoning, about 20% of the Ivy League college elite, and are per capita the most successful ethnic group in the country. It is difficult for the upper and middle classes of the United States to oppose support for Israel when membership in those classes brings one into contact socially and financially with Jewish members of the professions. For Conservative Jews at least, support for a “Jewish State” is at least as important a cultural touchstone as the Muslims find in preserving the territorial integrity of the original Muslim conquests of the seventh century AD onwards.

I see no end to the turmoil in the Middle East in our lifetimes.