'The resistance cannot win'

Let's hope he's right. Brendan Simms on Iraq.

More than two years after the removal of Saddam Hussein, the truth is beginning to sink in. The "resistance" cannot win. Coalition forces are standing firm, and the security services of the new Iraqi government are making an ever greater impact. Even if the Americans were to sicken and withdraw, the Sunni Arabs would face odds of four to one against the Shias and Kurds, not to mention the likelihood of Iranian intervention. By contrast, the only firm friend the Sunnis have in the neighbourhood, Baathist Syria, is itself under increasing pressure in the Lebanon and from the United States. Bashir Assad has recently said that he can foresee a day when he will no longer be President, hardly the words of a leader determined to see off the threat of western democracy next door.