[ZenGum]

This moment is like when the 16 year old son borrows the car for the first time.

You've taught him to drive, lectured him on safety, shown him car crashes, taken him to the ICU to talk with the quadraplegics; now, you hear the rumble of the exhaust down the driveway...
Will he drive sensibly and carefully like you told him? Will he turn into a hoon and wreck everything? Will some idiot smash into him despite everything you have done?

My guess is that the next few months - maybe even a year or so - will stay relatively quiet, as more and more foreign troops slowly leave. But I also guess there are trouble makers just biding their time, and when they judge that enough foreign troops have left, they will start to stir up shit. Mosque bombings, street killings, etc.
Whether that remains under control or descends into civil war and ends up like Lebannon is the question. It depends on so many things - almost all of them to do with the Iraqi people and whether they really support their government, enough to serve in its armies; or whether they become disenchanted with the rulers and apathetically allow extremists to screw things up.

I am not very hopeful. Iraq isn't a "natural state" - three big groups with different ethnicities, religions, and languages, and a history of bad behaviour towards each other. And some juicy oil deposits to keep things interesting. Add in meddling neighbours, and I think the odds are moderately against them. On the plus side, they have got a glimpse of life under religious whackos, and they didn't like it. Most of them will surely understand what civil war will mean for them, I hope.

Wait and see.