Nobody Saw This Coming...

The slow-motion devolution of Iraq has sped up to full-speed disintegration in Basra:

As British forces pull back from Basra in southern Iraq, Shiite militias there have escalated a violent battle against each other for political supremacy and control over oil resources, deepening concerns among some U.S. officials in Baghdad that elements of Iraq's Shiite-dominated national government will turn on one another once U.S. troops begin to draw down.

Basra was supposed to be the very picture of success with a homogeneous Shiite population and little outside influence. But this is what will happen all over Iraq - especially where the population is more heterogeneous - whether there are Western troops there or not. So if our Iraq misadventure is doomed to civil war regardless, why should our soldiers remain in harm's way?