Moqtada al Sadr's Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigades began fighting in Basra after the British pulled troops out, and who moved in to secure the area for the central Iraqi government? The Iraqi Army, that's who.
The surge has given us an enhanced opportunity to train Iraqi military units, and the results have been extremely positive. Long gone are the days when the Iraqi Army was an incompetent mess, entirely dependent on their American partners. Such victories may be very important to establishing a sense of national pride and confidence in the government, which has been succeeding to a degree unimaginable merely a year and a half ago.
This event should also be instructional about the consequences of pulling out of Iraq. The British left one section and triggered intense infighting. We are fortunate that it happened when the Iraqi Army had already become capable of dealing with the situation. What would happen if we left? Who would stop the bloodshed? If we found ourselves in another war, what local nationals would want to help us, seeing how we betrayed those who helped us in Iraq? But give us time to establish the government, to train and equip the army properly, and to instill a sense of secular national pride--then, although we may need permanent bases as staging areas against other threats, we can bring a great many of our brave soldiers home to their families.
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