Of course it's a civil war....

"War of the Words"

Throughout the week, there's been a big furor over NBC, the Los Angeles Times, and other news outlets deciding that the situation in Iraq can be classified as a civil war.
People think NBC was first, but actually it was the right-leaning Christian Science Monitor that first began calling Iraq a "deepening civil war" months ago. They are the only ones who got it right.
Today, Colin Powell came out directly against the president, according to major news outlets, saying that the conflict in Iraq meets the standard of a civil war. He told CNN's Hala Gorani in Dubai that the Bush Administration should acknowledge that.
When we first went in, Powell allegedly told Bush regarding the war "if you break it, it's yours."
It's broken, but unfortunately it's not just Bush's, it's all ours.
The Bush Administration, sadly but predictably, still denies there's a civil war in Iraq.
National Security Advisor, Stephen Hadley, said on Monday: "You have not yet had a situation...where you have clearly defined and opposing groups vying not only for power but for territory."
He's wrong. There are three.
The Sunni and Shiites are pretty clearly defined groups. They are so defined that they are able to round up random people on the street and sort out the shiites from the sunnis by checking names and I.D. Tell our troops that can't go into Sadr City to look for a kidnapped U.S. soldier that there's no "clearly defined" shiite group. Tell soldiers patroling the Anbar Province, AKA the Sunni Stronghold, that there's no "clearly defined" Sunni group.
And once you cross a line in the north you are no longer in Iraq. The Kurds have declared their territory is Kurdistan, the long-desired Kurdish homeland. At the border to Kurdistan, you are required to remove any Iraqi flags from your vehicle. How much more "clearly defined" does Hadley need the groups to be?
As for defining a civil war, many right-wing bloggers and pundits have whined that the Iraq war is "too complex" to be a civil war.
Oh, NOW they want it to be complex! A month ago it was good vs. evil. Stay the course. Freedom vs. tyranny. What could be simpler? When did they suddenly realize there was nuance?
And when was there a "simple" civil war? Ours? Our civil war was extremely complex. Try going to any large group of people and start a conversation about what the U.S. Civil War was about. Slavery? Economics? Power? It wasn't just North vs. South either, as any resident of Kansas or Missouri who knows their history can tell you. In many cases, rival sects threw on a blue or grey uniform just for the right to settle long-standing differences in their own private little bush wars. Another claim, that since foreign countries are involved it can't be a civil war, also falls pretty flat. There were foreign countries involved in our civil war. Some nations who hoped to see America fall transported arms and supplies to the south, exactly like Iran shipping weapons to the shiites or to hezbollah. No different.
So why the fear of calling it a civil war?
Because it will change the mental dynamics of the war.
Some are calling Matt Lauer's "It's a civil war" declaration a "Cronkite moment."
Many of you may not know what this means.
At one point during the Vietnam War, Walter Cronkite declared, during a broadcast, that the war had become unwinnable.
That idea gelled in the minds of U.S. citizens. They chewed it up, tasted the foul, pungeant flavoring, and then, finally, with great distaste swallowed it.
After that, the conversation changed to how to get out of Vietnam. Retreat with honor.
Unfortunately, Bush has dug us in so deep, so ineptly, and through such dishonorable means and goals, that I am not sure retreat with honor is possible here.
Iraq is a debacle. It's broken, but unfortunately it's not just Bush's, as Powell stated. It's all of ours.
Any tactician will tell you that if you are fighting a battle where you are not gaining any ground, and in fact losing it, it's time to pull back. You're just wasting resources.
Doesn't mean we should leave, but the entire mission over there should change.
I've said two things from the beginning.
1. Iraqis will have a peaceful democracy when Iraqis want it so bad that no one will stand in their way. The Kurds have proved that. They deserve their Kurdistan. Turkey be damned.
2. Iraq will fracture. Today, tomorrow, next month of five years from now, Iraq will divide. It's a fake country constructed by the British after the fall of the last caliphate, just like all those warring nations in Africa. The people there were forced together regardless of a long history or antagonism by European powers who just wanted their natural resources. Iraq is shaped to allow imperial nations to get oil from the rich fields of the north and south into the Persian Gulf. Period. There was no concern for the shiites, sunnis, kurds, persians, arabs, beduin or chaldeans who inhabited the land in their own distinct territories and culture.
At one point, early on, perhaps it could have been saved. But I don't think so at this point.
It's Yugoslavia 2.0 and us forcing them to stay together is only making things worse. We've dropped a big 2 liter of mountain dew and we think if we keep shaking it somehow the pressure will subside. You're going to have to ease that cap off a bit. Perhaps partitioning is a way to do that to let everyone cool down. I don't really know.
What I do know is what we're doing now, losing ground with no clear goals, isn't a strategy for victory in Iraq's civil war.