Civil War in Iraq

Has civil war started in Iraq? Yes and no. I believe that all-out civil war is imminent, and the presence of U.S. and U.K. forces is only just preventing all-out war. The events of the last few weeks—especially the violence touched off by the bombing of the Askariya mosque, and the retaliatory bombings of Sunni mosques around Iraq—seems to confirm that. It seemed, from within the borders of America, that the state of affairs in Iraq was calming down—the worst-case scenario would be a loose confederacy that never found itself quite capable of dealing with a low-level insurgency—but now that perception seems to be flawed. It now seems apparent that, much like the buildup of energy in the bedrock before an earthquake, the tensions in Iraq had been building up, waiting for a trigger.

Events seem very much to have moved beyond the capabilities of the U.S. and U.K. forces in the region to make much of a difference; indeed, the U.S. and U.K. forces do not seem to have made any sort of overt act aimed at quelling the violence, only at maintaining the status quo. Truly, there does not seem to be any obvious act that they could take, but there has been disappointingly little done. The most visible action made by U.S. forces seems to be the start of a new air raid campaign—in this, and all other actions, the U.S. and U.K. forces seem unwilling to abandon their perception of the War as a struggle against foreign fighters. I ought to be clear here: the decision to start an air campaign, or to make a change in strategy is not done at the company, division, brigade, or even branch level—it is done at the cabinet level. It was naive to expect an administration that did not anticipate sectarian and ethnic violence, not to mention the insurgency itself, to react quickly to one more bombing in a country where dozens of bombs go off every day?

I think it is undeniable to anyone who looks at Iraq with a critical eye that there is a real possibility of civil war. Historically, of course, the Sunnis dominated the country under Saddam, and while the Kurds did get a great deal of independence after the Gulf War, the Shiites suffered greatly in that time. Now, it would be foolish to assert that, in this context, these two parties could not possibly unite, along with the Kurds, and form a unified post-Saddam Iraq. Indeed, immediately after the fall of Saddam, it seemed likely, almost inevitable, that a unified Iraq would be formed. Still, even critics of the War—like myself—were forced to admit that, even though there were no WMDs, there was no al Qaeda the War could produce the positive outcome: the people of Iraq coming together to form a unified country simply to keep the peace.

That hardly seems to be the case. Of course, I am in no way whatsoever implying or claiming that the Iraqi people want this violence. That is absurd and elitist. What I do think is that the leaders, contrary to the wishes or interests of the people they represent, are putting their country on a path to Civil War. Witness the use of the Interior Ministry, and paramilitary militias as a political police force by the Shiites, along with the perennial use of guerrilla tactics by the Sunnis. Further, each action only inflames the opposing party, making a peaceful resolution retreat further away.

Conservatives often assert that liberals simply complain, without offering any ideas of there own. We have been in Iraq for three years now, and it is not absurd to posit that the situation is unavoidably going to devolve into civil war. If Bush had a better Secretary of Defense, if Bush really cared about what the Generals and Joint Chiefs had to say, if Bush were a more competent Commander in Chief—hell, I'll say it—if Bush were a better man, then 2003, 2004, and 2005 would have been very different years, and things would almost certainly have gone better. We cannot change history, but it almost seems as though we are at a point wherein the only way out of the mess we created in Iraq, short of civil war, is to get into the Wayback Machine and get Gore elected in 2000. In a later post, I will outline some real ideas for victory; I know that that is a quixotic^* endeavor, since none of my ideas would ever be enacted by our President, but I would hate for my hypothetical conservative critic to be right.

In the meantime, we wait with baited breath to see whether the Iraqis overcome their deep intransigencies and convene Parliament, and quickly, but deliberately, come to a nonviolent solution to the problems stemming from their deep, long-held hatreds, rather than let their country descend into civil war. Perhaps we will not have to wait long.

^*The word "quixotic" in today's post is dedicated to Lindsay.