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Analysis: Averting Civil War in Iraq

Council on Foreign Relations

August 10, 2006
Prepared by: Lionel Beehner

Throughout much of Iraq's postwar period, Shiite restraint was largely what prevented the country from sliding into civil war. Despite an onslaught of increasingly destructive insurgent attacks by Sunni Arabs, most Shiite clerical and political leaders urged caution. They feared disrupting the democratic process because, from a demographic standpoint, it clearly favored Shiite parties. The February bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, however, marked the turning point when Shiite militias responded with proportional force and violence became more sectarian. General John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, told the U.S. Congress August 3 that Iraq was teetering on the precipice of civil war (IHT). Civilian casualties now top one hundred per day.

But if Iraq enters the grips of civil war, what does that mean for U.S. policy? More U.S. troops could be sent in or forces could be scaled back, a move which might force Iraq's feuding ethnic groups to broker some form of peace. Or perhaps troops could be reassigned to danger zones like Baghdad, which some analysts have likened to a "whack-a-mole" strategy. CFR Senior Fellow Max Boot prefers deploying more troops, not fewer "if we are to have any hope of averting the worst American military defeat since Vietnam."

The nomenclature of the current conflict has vexed U.S. officials (Newsweek), who long referred to the enemy as "dead-enders" or "Saddamists," terms that suggest a fly-by nuisance that goes away with time and political progress within the Green Zone. Even the term "insurgency" implied a messy situation involving a Vietnam-like commitment. Insurgencies are not won on the battlefield, military experts say, and typically drag on for at least a decade.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.