mixed families of Sunnis and Shiites, especially in Baghdad and Basra….
There is no doubt that there is a war in Iraq. It is important to know what kind of a war this is.
If it is a civil war, we should identify the two rival sides and decided which side we ought to support right down to victory.
If it is a sectarian war, the only way to end it is either by geographical separation, as was the case with Croatia and Serbia, or through massive foreign occupation, as is the case in Bosnia-Herzegovina. (There are over 50,000 NATO troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina, more than a decade after Western powers intervened to end the sectarian war. Iraq is nine times larger than Bosnia-Herzegovina but hosts only 150,000 foreign troops.)
What is happening in Iraq, however, is neither a civil nor a sectarian war, although elements of both exist within a broader context.
The war in Iraq is a political one between those who wish the new Iraq to succeed and those who want to ensure its failure. Those who want new Iraq to succeed represent the overwhelming majority of Iraqis of all ethnic and religious backgrounds. Those who want it to fail are made up of Saddamite bitter-enders, some misguided pan-Arab nationalists, death-squads financed by Tehran, and a variety of non-Iraqi terrorist outfits who have come to Iraq to kill and die in the name of their perverted vision of Islam.
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