The collapse of the Awakening Councils was inevitable. The Shi'a have won. They have strung the Americans along for as long as possible. Now the Americans are on the way out. And the Shi'a have no intention of welcoming the Sunnis into the government in any serious fashion, and no intention of allowing them to possess independent military forces capable of promoting Sunni interests.

And the Sunnis, of course, never intended those Awakening Councils to be merely the instruments of anti-Al Qaeda activities. They were, and remain, intent on extracting as much money and as many weapons from the Americans as possible.

And the Americans are always happy to oblige. Money here, weaonry there, and always the soothing fiction is maintained -- does General Petraeus still believe it? -- that somehow the Sunnis and Shi'a can be reconciled.

But they can't. The Sunnis will never acquiesce in their new and subservient position. And the Shi'a, whatever their internecine wars, will never give the Sunnis what they demand, or anything close.

Why Can't They All Get Along? 

Islam. Islam that teaches aggression and violence, Islam that teaches that one does not ever give into one's enemies, but may perhaps pretend to, now and then, in order to wait for a more opportune moment to strike. Islam, that  offers as a model of treaty-making that made, at Hudaibiyya, by Muhammad with the Meccans in 628 A.D., and promptly broke as soon as he could. Islam, that teaches that when the battle's lost and won, when the hurlyburly's done, there can remain only two possibilities: either one is among the Victors, or one is among the Vanquished. Nothing else to be -- anywhere!