It’s an Iraqi Initiative!

One of the more outlandish conceits of Bush’s speech tonight, is that he will pretend that the escalation is, essentially, an Iraqi initiative–and we’re just there to back up and help out. This is, of course, utter nonsense. Iraq doesn’t have a coherent government, much less “ideas” or much motivation for finding ways to knit together the society we shattered.
But here’s a question: Where are these new Iraqi brigades who’ll patrol Baghdad coming from? My guess is they’re predominantly Pesh Merga, coming down from Kurdistan. If so, you’ll have Kurds policing the other two sectarian tribes, Sunni and Shi’ite Arabs. You’ve got to wonder how stable–or volatile–that will be.