Iraq on verge of civil war?

Maybe not, says Gateway Pundit, after actually reading the report.

Excerpts:

Iraqi security forces continue to develop into a capable force and continue to take the lead. On Tuesday in Ramadi, the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Brigade of the 7th Iraqi Army Division assumed responsibility in its area of operations.

This now makes 90 Iraq army battalions in the lead. In total today, there are six of 10 Iraqi army divisions in the lead, 30 of 36 Iraqi brigades, and 90 of 112 Iraqi battalions in the lead. And we operate in support of them. All across Iraq, we continue to see an increasingly capable Iraqi security force continuing to take the lead...

The New York Times claims Iraq is close to a civil war. But if you notice the colored symbols in the leaked document there are no critical (red) indicators of this. So how does the New York Times get civil war out of this leaked document?

I say:

Wishful thinking at the senile gray lady, perhaps. Many allege the Times is deliberately trying to demoralize us by propaganda. Like Tokyo Rose, Lord Haw Haw, that sort of thing. All *I* dare claim for certain is they're not telling their readers the truth, and that they have a very suspicious pattern of leaks.

Also, I've yet to see anyone define the phrase "civil war in Iraq" in a way that clearly differentiates it from the state of affairs under Saddam.

While we're on the subject, here's Tech Central Station on nation building - when it works, and when it doesn't.

Excerpt:

After MacArthur finished in Japan, Korea and Taiwan, the American policy community missed the fundamental difference between his strategic approach of nation building and our technocratic approach in Europe. We have consistently adopted Marshall's model of state building when faced with a collapsed state. But dollars and ballots (and certainly not bullets) cannot build a viable state without the laws and a civil society on which to anchor it. In my earlier piece I said that the state is the "...apparatus of a nation" and states often fail because they are not based on a true nation. A successful modern state must be grounded in a viable nation. There is no other way.

I say:

By this definition, there is no such thing as the nation of Iraq, and there never was. But if we do it right, we can easily build an Iraqi Kurd nation and an Iraqi Shia nation. We're most of the way to the first one already. Plus, there's a good chance these two nations will form a federation to keep the Ba'athist trash of the Sunni Triangle in their place.

Consider this the fallback plan. I'd have preferred this as plan A, but Dubya doesn't listen to me, and the Democrats haven't got any plan at all. That is, unless you count giving up as a plan.

Another excerpt:

True, a "propinquity principle" may take hold after a long period of time as in Iraq where there are three very disparate communities.

I say:

Hardly a sure thing, but not as faint a hope as Schaefer seems to think, considering the news I pointed to above. Free Iraq is a nation now... sort of.

At least four-fifths of it is.


Angelfire link (turn off Javascript to avoid popups)