Department of Undead Horses: "Victory" in Iraq is a delusion

McClatchy reports that a new NIE on Iraq confirms what we've known for some time: underlying political tensions in Iraq remain unresolved and fester just beneath the surface. There isn't going to be any tidy happy ending to the Iraq story where McCain and his neocon pals get to ride off into the sunset like triumphant gunfighters.

A nearly completed high-level U.S. intelligence analysis warns that unresolved ethnic and sectarian tensions in Iraq could unleash a new wave of violence, potentially reversing the major security and political gains achieved over the last year.

...The draft NIE... warns that the improvements in security and political progress, like the recent passage of a provincial election law, are threatened by lingering disputes between the majority Shiite Arabs, Sunni Arabs, Kurds and other minorities, the U.S. officials said.

Sources of tension identified by the NIE, they said, include a struggle between Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen for control of the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk; and the Shiite-led central government's unfulfilled vows to hire former Sunni insurgents who joined Awakening groups.

McCain and Governor Palin can talk up American victory in Iraq as much as they want, and the brain dead jingos in the GOP base may be eating that up like zombies devoring dead flesh, but what happens in Iraq will will be determined by the Iraqis. Surge or no surge, they still have shit to work out. Until they do that, there will be no stability and no lasting peace.