The rough consensus on LBO-T last year, if I recall aright, was that the UN should take over, which meant (1) US troops would get out and (2) the rise of a moderately repressive but reasonably stable Shiite theocracy, probably on the Iranian model. Which are going to happen anyway, as we know - it's just a matter of time.
I was just thinking about Central Asia, and it occurred to me there's a singular dialectic at work here: three neighboring countries embody three different geopolitical paths. Iranian cinema has become the Persian mirror of Central Asian geopolitics, Iraq has become the tomb of US petro-fundamentalism, and Turkey is about to become the latest candidate for EU membership.
-- DRR