The US has become Iraq's 19th province

[ECH1969]

For Washington, the biggest problem is that despite increasing American desperation to pull out, the U.S. presence is gradually getting woven into the very fabric of the new Iraq.

Picture NATO troops in Bosnia—there more than a decade and counting—and then multiply that pathological dependence several times over. So terrified are most Shia leaders of Sunni insurgents that they regularly blanch when faced with the prospect of U.S. withdrawal.

So terrified are the Sunnis of Shiite militias that they insist on having Americans accompany any Iraqi units that move into their towns. Absent U.S. guidance and advisors, the Iraqi army will become a Shiite Army, and the Sunni community will become a sea for the insurgency to swim in once again.

When the war started, some observers worried that Iraq might become America’s “51st state,” a virtual protectorate of Washington’s. Today the worry is that America has become Iraq’s 19th province—and the most important one in the country.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12132994/site/newsweek/