Reconciliation In Iraq?

Obviously something has changed in Iraq in the last year.  The question is what, and what will happen next.

Will the defeat of Al Qaeda in Iraq lead to a reconciliation between Sunni and Shia, or will the civil war resume once the US starts to reduce its forces in the year ahead?

Conservative commentators like Michael Ledeen are optimistic.

Meanwhile, the country’s leading religious leaders seem on the verge of issuing an historic document: a fatwa condemning violence. The signatories would be two towering figures, one Sunni, one Shiite.

Lefty blog posters have a different point of view. Here is talisman.

Ah, but the so-called "turnaround" in Iraq is merely one of slightly decreased violence - and only a temporary one, from most established on-the-ground accounts, which means Bush can declare "victory" while still keeping our kids over there as cannon fodder.

Actually, he might be right.  We simply do not know how the various factions in Iraq will act in the aftermath of the “surge.”

We can understand this divide.  Both conservatives and liberals want to be proven right.  Conservatives want to believe that the US was right to go into Iraq.  Liberals want to believe that it was wrong to go into Iraq.

But whatever happens in Iraq, there is still the question of Iran.