That may very well be the way it turns out, but their victory would still be our success. From now on Iraq's guns will be pointed outward at its enemies rather than inward at its own people.
Westerners will never really leave Iraq, ever. The troops will pull out, obviously, and most of the American contractors will come home unharmed; Iraq will stand on it's own two feet from then on. But they'll be more willing to obey international treaties, they'll be more suceptible to UN sanctions if it ever gets to that, and except for their ties to OPEC, their economy will be more integrated into the world economy and more vulnerable to its swings. Who knows, Iraq may become the world's next Japan with a booming tech sector and a prolonged recession as a counter-balance. The point is that with Saddam gone Iraq's military ambitions are spent and they'll be more willing to please the western nations they perceive as being more powerful than they. This is exactly what the fanatical Muslim minority always feared would happen.
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