Iraq Is Coming Apart at the Seams

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted October 21, 2006.

As Iraq falls apart, rumors are flying that there will be a Bush-backed coup, an open three-sided civil war and a host of other nightmarish outcomes.

Iraq is splintering along a dozen fault lines, and the prospects for a political solution are slim. Experts in conflict negotiation -- veterans of civil strife in places like Northern Ireland and Cambodia -- talk about the need for a clash to "ripen," to come to a point when combatants are exhausted with the violence and see that whatever they might gain from continued fighting is outweighed by the costs. Before they get to that place, a political settlement is all but impossible.

Iraq's armed factions, sadly, aren't close to that point. The stakes are too high -- Shiites are fighting for the majority rule that has long eluded them, Sunnis are fighting to hang on to some political influence and retain a piece of the country's oil wealth and the Kurds are fighting for some degree of independence. Iraqis are fighting against occupation by foreign troops, and they're fighting to keep their country together. Neither government troops nor coalition forces have been able to protect civilians; they're being cut down by death squads and plagued by rampant criminality. Iraqis are battling for their homes and for their lives.

This week saw the first signs of open civil war, as Shiite and Sunni militias battled it out in Balad, a city north of Baghdad, as well as a sharp spike in violence in the Iraqi capital. In the south, Shiites battled Shiites in Amarah, while Sunni militias held military parades in Haqlaniyah and Haditha. There are at least 23 independent militias operating in Baghdad alone.

It's hard to imagine what policy makers here or in Iraq can do to change the risk-benefit calculations to a degree that would lead dozens of armed factions to lay down their weapons and trust their futures to a political process. In Washington, those tasked with trying to come up with the right policy are hobbled by a stunning degree of ignorance about the region -- essentially viewing the Middle East as roiled in a conflict between "good" and "bad" Arabs. The New York Times' Jeff Stein found that most policy makers overseeing the U.S. effort don't even know which countries in the region -- or which armed groups in Iraq -- have Shiite or Sunni majorities.

Today the government elected last December is hanging by a thread. Iraqi lawmakers reached by phone earlier this week reported that Baghdad is awash in rumors of an impending coup. There's widespread anticipation that a "government of national salvation" -- a junta -- will seize power and dissolve Iraq's Parliament at any time. Those rumors are being echoed in Washington.

More at: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/43278/