Perspective: Historians Offer Dismal Iraq Forecast

To historians and others pondering Iraq, forecasting a final outcome for that sad land is like finding your way through one of its "shamal" sandstorms. You may not know where you're headed, but you know it's going to be dark.

The Middle East historian David Fromkin sees a breakup of the jerry-built nation. Phebe Marr, doyenne of Iraq scholars, sees "distrust and suspicion" too deep to overcome. "Bleak," concludes Baghdad University's Saad al-Hadithi.

"At the moment," said the British historian Niall Ferguson, "a happy ending has a 1-in-100 look about it."

Read the rest at the LA Times