Maysan

From Wikipedia:

Maysan (Arabic: ميسان Maysān‎) is a governorate in south eastern Iraq, bordering Iran. The provincial capital, located beside the Tigris, is Al Amarah. The second settlement is Majar Al-Kabir. Prior to 1976 the province was known as Amara Province.
Maysan is a majority Shia province. Its population suffered greatly during the Iran–Iraq War, during which it was a major battlefield, and subsequently post the 1991 Shia Uprising. The governorate is traditionally home to many Marsh Arabs.
In 2003 it came under the control of the British Armed Forces after the invasion of Iraq, and an elected Provincial Council had now been formed. Some of this formation process has been described by Rory Stewart The Prince of the Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq. Majar Al-Kabir was the site of the death of six British Royal Military Policemen in 2003, and Al-Amarah became a well-publicised city in the British press when a rash of street fighting occurred in the summer of 2004, culminating in the siege of CIMIC-House.
A proposal to join Maysan with the neighbouring governorates of Basra and Dhi Qar to form a southeastern state in an eventual Iraqi federation is currently[update] in the talking stages.[1]
Since October 2006 the region of farmland and marshes has been a chokepoint for munitions and people entering Iraq from Iran. Political control has been fiercely contested by followers of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim and Muqtada al-Sadr. Sadr’s allies dominate the 42-member provincial council, and the governor is a former Mahdi Army commander. But the police chief is a former Badr Organization member, and many of his policemen pledge loyalty to that militia.[2] On April 18, 2007, the province became the fourth in Iraq where Iraqi troops have sole responsibility for security.
On Dec. 18, 2009, Iranian armed forces dug trenches in and around an oil field in the Maysan province, claiming it as Iranian soil, and in a statement released by the government of Iran on Dec. 19, 2009, Iran stated that: (they are)"on Iranian soil, as defined by known international borders."[3]

I'd say this is pretty accurate.

Maysan is one of the four provinces our Brigade operates in. From the outside, it is interesting to see it evolve and see it be manipulated from both internal and external forces. The writing is on the wall, we will be out of Iraq (maybe???) and Iraqis are picking sides and jockeying for power, and in some ways disassociating from the US.

Maysan is that neighborhood you don't like to drive through, or the house with the crazy people in it who live on your street, who just happen to live in front of the mailbox, so you can't avoid going there. You can't just ignore it, you have to go by there and occasionally have an awkward moment with the inhabitants. You smile and wave, but you know you aren't wild about them and they know they hate you and can't wait to leave.

Maysan is important to US forces, as it is an eastern province. We often joke that Maysan is Western Iran. Some say it actually is-- This swath of marsh, and its two towns of Amara and Majir al Kabir have gone back and forth in a land grab between Iraq and Iran. We have spent $230 million in Maysan in an effort to make it better since 2003. It has hosted smugglers for thousands of years, and no matter how much you try to stop it, bad blow up stuff and illegal commerce will continue to flow. (They simply call it trade.)

Maysan is important to Iran as well. It is almost exclusively Shia, and it is no secret that it is heavily influenced by Iran. It is also their gateway into Iraq for just about everything. It has a major power base for "Uncle Mookie" (Moqtada al Sadr) the Shiite nutjob cleric who is a thorn in the side of the Government.

So what happens to Maysan when we leave? I dunno. I often wonder why bother with the effort, and wonder what good we are doing there. My opinion of what happens when we leave: Maysan goes back to what it used to be before the conquerers of the US, the British in the 1920s, the Ottoman Empire, etc. etc., which is a bunch of tribes who live in the marshes and do what they do, and wait for the next attempted conquerer to roll in.

I guess we'll see what happens.