From the crazy left-wing New York Times.

Excerpt:

Sheik Kamal Maamouri, the leader of one of the largest Shiite-dominated tribes in Iraq, used to call the United States troops here occupiers, demanding that they withdraw because he said they killed and imprisoned innocent members of his tribe.

But now he is not so sure he wants the Americans to go, at least not yet. Like many others across Iraq, he felt conflicted, and a bit frightened, after it was revealed last week that the United States may keep 3,000 to 4,000 troops in Iraq next year.

“The political changes that have occurred here and the security problems have led a lot of Iraqis, including me, to change our minds about the withdrawal of U.S. forces,” Mr. Maamouri said. That was a view that few Shiites, empowered by the fall of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni government, would ever have spoken — when it seemed the United States was never going to go.

“They bring a balance to Iraqi society,” he said.

Though Iraqis have called for Americans to leave from the start of the occupation in 2003, the prospect of such a drastic drawdown, from the 48,000 troops here now, has revealed another side of the Iraqi psyche. This is a nation that distrusts itself, with little faith in the government’s own security forces or political leaders. It is as if people here never actually believed that the United States would leave, so all along demands for a pullout were never carefully weighed against the potential fallout.

This is not to say that Iraqis no longer want to be liberated from a foreign military, which of course they say they do. But Iraqis who once cheered the fall of a dictator recall all too vividly the chaos and bloodshed that came after Mr. Hussein’s iron rule was broken. Iraq still has the fault lines of that past, Sunni versus Shiite, Arab versus Kurd. What it does not have are strong institutions, or a collective sense of national purpose, to hold it together.

“We shouldn’t think about the occupation emotionally,” said the governor of Anbar Province, Mohammed Qasim Abed, who for eight years wanted the Americans out, but now has had second thoughts as violence in his area escalates. “Iraq is just not ready, and it’s necessary for the Americans to stay to prevent Iran from overrunning the country and helping to prevent violence. But we know 3,000 troops will not be enough.”

Interesting.