Iraq wasn't Iraq in 2003 yet, either
By which I mean, in 2003 and early 2004, people could still jog safely around Baghdad, and the UN, WHO, etc. could run missions in the country safely. A lot depends on what the military calls Phase IV, and a look at the Caucuses tells us Russia isn't particularly better at managing that than we are. Now, does that mean there will be an insurgency in Crimea? Or that the Ukrainians will be irredentist? Or that the Tartars will try to break away? No, it's possible that none of these will happen, but it depends largely on what Russia does now -- sort of like none of the horrors of 2005-2006 were written in stone in 2003; the US screwed that up. But looking at the situation today and saying "Well, Russia did that pretty well" would be like looking at Iraq in late 2003 and saying the same thing (which a lot of people did), and would be just as shortsighted. Remember Feith? "It seems difficult to imagine that it would require more troops to hold Iraq than it did to take it". People somehow actually thought that, despite the fact that every single military textbook says the exact opposite (the rule of thumb I remember was 4 times as many to hold as to take).
Now, it's possible Russia has learned from its experiences in the caucuses. Or that they will show a different "face" to their west than they do to their south (countries are known to do that). But carefully stage-managed lightning campaigns against the trappings of official power are, as we should know by now, only the first step of modern wars. What happens next can go a lot of ways.
