‘Civil War’ Is No Longer a Taboo Phrase in Iraq

[Barrett808]

‘Civil War’ Is No Longer a Taboo Phrase in Iraq
Luke Baker, Reuters

BAGHDAD, 27 April 2005 — Civil war. It’s a phrase everyone in Iraq has strenuously avoided for the past two years.

Yet now, with no government formed three months after elections, and tensions deepening between Iraq’s Muslim sects and other groups, it’s on many people’s minds. Several clashes between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in events apparently unrelated to the two-year-old anti-US insurgency have highlighted the danger in recent months.

Whereas once politicians were not willing to utter the term for fear of dignifying it, it is no longer taboo. “I do not want to say civil war, but we are going the Lebanese route, and we know where that led,” says Sabah Kadhim, an adviser to the Interior Ministry who spent years in exile before returning to Iraq after Saddam Hussein’s overthrow. “We are going to end up with certain areas that are controlled by certain warlords ... It’s Sunni versus Shiite, that is the issue that is really in the ascendancy right now, and that wasn’t the case right after the elections.”

In Madaen and other mixed Sunni-Shiite towns on the rivers south of Baghdad, rival groups have been carrying out revenge attacks since before the January polls, police said. This month more than 50 bodies have been pulled from the Tigris River. In the poor Shiite district of Shuala in western Baghdad, there has been a series of car bombings and killings, apparently related to tensions with Sunni militants in the neighboring district of Abu Ghraib, one of Iraq’s most violent. Similar violence has hit towns north of Baghdad, such as Baquba, where Sunni and Shiite mosques have been bombed.

In part the tensions are the result of the long-declared intention by Sunni militants such as Jordanian Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi to sow sectarian discord and provoke civil war. But they also reflect a natural increase in animosity between the two sects since the Jan. 30 poll, which handed power to the Shiite majority after decades of Sunni-led rule.

(more)

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=62805&d=27&m=4&y=2005

[firefox]

1. The US is behind the civil war

Having the US raise an Iraqi army to impose the US will is a civil war.

[Barrett808]

2. This is certainly what many Iraqis assume

The instability, the weak central government, the rampant corruption -- many Iraqis assume this chaos serves the interests of the occupier.

[NeoConsSuck]

3. Of course we want the instability!

we can't pack up and leave in the middle of a civil war, now, can we?

Besides, we haven't even finished building our 'diplomatic headquarters'. And Halliburton stock still has to rise another 50% before we would even consider moving out.

If an occasional whirlybird happens to get shot out of the sky, we can live with it. Besides, it makes great news for MSM.

[MontageOfFreedom]

13. Sorry, but this is sadly true. All the attacks and civil wars are....

Due to the fact that Halliburton and its soldiers are corrupting the Iraq government, by creating an even more dispicable dictatorship.

Once their agenda is complete, the oil prices will go down to rock bottom ensuring the U.S.A makes millions and produces thousands of gallons of gas.

[neverforget]

6. What Iraqi Army? they keep abandoning their posts.

[Daphne08]

12. I disagree. I've lived in the Middle East, and

I predicted that there would be a Civil War in Iraq if we invaded.

There's too much bitterness between the factions, ergo we should never have invaded that country!

I'm certain the Middle East experts in Washington told this administration the very same thing.

[Barrett808]

15. The potential is there, but the occupation could be a greater unifying...

...force. As in, unified against the US.

[dave502d]

4. When bush guy lost.

Rove said will start a Civil war and make sure the Sunni
end up as the majority.

[Barrett808]

5. I've been skeptical of the civil war scenarios for awhile

Of course, civil war, à la Lebanon, is a possibility.

But I think that the "historic" January election had as its central focus the end of the US occupation. If the Shi'a see the weak central government -- which hasn't even been formed yet, since the current "government" exists to draft the constitution -- as unable to deliver on this single, biggest promise, then the "Sunni" insurgency may find many new Shi'a brothers in arms.

It's plainly obvious to many that Bush intends never to leave Iraq. World oil production is peaking right now, and the energy mafia intends to control that Iraqi sweet crude as the world slides into petroleum depletion.

But nothing will unify Iraqis faster than widespread acknowledgment of this strategic goal. If the political process fails, as seems most likely, millions of Shi'a will take to the streets, and the occupation will need to get immensely uglier to suppress that kind of uprising. Soon after this, the occupation will fail, and the specter of technocrats clinging to helo skids will haunt US televisions again.

And if Bush bombs Iran, the mullahs will have every reason to stir things up in Iraq. Then we'll be fighting something like a three-front war. But civil war in Iraq won't be among its more notable features.

[grytpype]

7. And our Army is exhausted.

We are not going to be able to put Humpty Dumpty together again people.

I think by the end of 2006 we will be pulling out of Iraq in disgrace. There's no alternative now.

[keopeli]

10. Not while Bush* is in charge

You must understand the hubris. Bush* is perfectly willing to pretend that Iraq is ok, pay someone to tell him every day that Iraq is ok. He won't see any bodies, he won't allow any bad news. His popularity might tank, but that wouldn't bother him at all. He will not pull out of Iraq without being able to call it a success. That will be very difficult to do, even by manufacturing the news on Fox, if Iraq is in Civil War.

Here is what's interesting. We have enough troops in Iraq to execute minimal control, under the assumption that the bad guys (aka insurgents) are a small group of rebels. If civil war breaks out, there is no way we can monitor a police state in Iraq with 150,000 troops. The number will need to double, at a minimum.

Truthfully, we should all be praying that Iraq does NOT turn into a Civil War, even if it would sink the neocons forever. It will prove to be the biggest mistake in US history.

[oblivious]

8. OK, so let's see who they interviewed to come to this tentative conclusion

Sabah Kadhim, an adviser to the Interior Ministry who spent years in exile before returning to Iraq after Saddam Hussein’s overthrow

Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at Queen Mary University of London

The only real Iraqi they interview -- President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd -- rules out the possibility of civil war, but this is put in the last two paragraphs, which few people read, because it doesn't fit very comfortably with the headline and opener.

[Barrett808]

9. This appears to support Fisk's observation that the civil war scenario

is purely a fantasy of the US and the UK.

[drduffy]

11. I wish...

that we would always figure in the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) when discussing this stuff. Try to remember what the real plan of the neocons is. Control, control, control....of Iraq, Iran, the whole middle east. Their world domination plans require it.

And remember, Peak Oil drives it. You better get prepared.

[CWebster]

14. It serves us to have them battling between themselves

Divide and conquer and all that.

We need that oil and such diversions keep them out of our way and focused on killing each other.