O insolúvel problema do Iraque

Almost a fortnight after Barack Obama's announcement that US forces would complete a total withdrawal from Iraq by the end of year, here's a stark reminder of the bloodshed that remains.
Reuters reports this morning that October saw the greatest number of civilians killed in the country this year. The Health Ministry has said that 161 civilians were killed in the month just passed, a sharp increase from September's 110.
According to Reuters, the statistics also reveal that:
The number of police officers killed rose to 55 from 42 in September, while 42 soldiers died in violence compared to 33 the previous month, according to statistics from the interior and defence ministries. Bombings and other attacks wounded 195 civilians, 142 police and 101 soldiers, the ministries said. Eighty-five insurgents were killed during the month.
Obama announced on 21 October that there would be no more American boots on the ground after 31 December, nearly nine years after the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.
Analysts are now openly wondering what the effect of the draw-down will be on the security situation. John F Burns of the New York Times, wrote on Monday:
With American troops gone, and with them the role they have played as the ultimate guarantor of the new constitutional rules adopted under American occupation, all bets, at least potentially, will be off.
Could there be a return to the incipient civil war of 2005 to 2007? A military coup in Baghdad, and the rise of a new Iraqi strongman (if not, all would hope, in the brutal tradition of Saddam)? Yes, to both questions — though the argument that has prevailed in American deliberations is that both outcomes are unlikely, and in any case ultimately unavoidable, if American troops are not to be held hostage interminably to the insolubles of Iraqi politics.
October saw a number of major attacks in which civilians were caught up, including a double bombing last week that killed 32 people and wounded 71 in a Shia district of Baghdad.
[b]The Guardian[/b]