The Ongoing Iraqi Civil War

The LA Times ran a story this weekend regarding the civil war in Iraq. The gist: they're already in one.

In a speech delivered as Iraqis prepared to go to the polls, President Bush said he didn't believe a civil war would break out in the country. But some observers believe it has already begun — a quiet and deadly struggle whose battle lines were thrown into sharp relief by the highly polarized vote results.

...

James Fearon, a Stanford University political scientist and an authority on modern conflicts, believes that Iraq's civil war began almost as soon as Hussein was ousted, and that it is now obscured and partly held back by the presence of foreign forces.

"I think there is definitely a civil war that has been going on since we finished the major combat operations," Fearon said. He rejects the position of many observers that a civil war is still only a possibility for Iraq.

"When people talk about 'Will there be a civil war?' they are really talking about a different type of civil war," he said.

The kind of war emerging in Iraq, characterized by guerrilla attacks, kidnappings, assassinations and "ethnic cleansing," is typical of modern civil conflicts, Fearon said.

"Since 1945, almost all civil wars, a big plurality, have been guerrilla wars where it is kind of insurgency versus counterinsurgency," he said. "Most civil wars look more like what we are seeing in Iraq now."

This is something I've been saying for a long time. When I first started my On The Road To 2008 blog in 2004, I wrote about the U.S.'s involvement in Iraq's civil war. Today matters only look far worse because the guerrilla tactics have not let up, and because of an increased sentiment that the political process is being held together by a thread.

I strongly recommend you read the entire article. Anyone who can convince me that George W. Bush knew what he was getting into when he invaded Iraq wins an award.