Scholars agree Iraq meets definition of 'civil war' - It is put among the worst in 60 years

Scholars agree Iraq meets definition of 'civil war' - It is put among the worst in 60 years
By Edward Wong
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: November 26, 2006


BAGHDAD: Is Iraq in a civil war?

Though the Bush administration continues to insist that it is not, a growing number of U.S. and Iraqi scholars, leaders and policy analysts say the fighting in Iraq in every way meets the standard definition of civil war.

The common scholarly definition has two main criteria. The first says that the warring groups must be from the same country and fighting for control of the political center, control over a separatist state or to force a major change in policy. The second says that at least 1,000 people must have been killed, with at least 100 from each side.

American professors who specialize in the study of civil wars say that most of them agree that the conflict in Iraq is a civil war.

"I think that at this time, and for some time now, the level of violence in Iraq meets the definition of civil war that any reasonable person would have," said James Fearon, a political scientist at Stanford who in September testified to Congress on the Iraq war.

While the term is broad enough to include many kinds of conflicts, one of the sides in a civil war is almost always the sovereign government. Therefore, some scholars say the civil war in Iraq began when the Americans transferred sovereignty to an appointed Iraqi government in June 2004. That officially transformed the anti-American war into one of insurgent groups seeking to regain power for disenfranchised Sunni Arabs against an Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi and increasingly dominated by Shiites.

Others say the civil war began this year, after the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra set off a chain of revenge killings that left hundreds dead over five days and has yet to end. Allawi proclaimed a month after that bombing that Iraq was mired in a civil war. "If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is," Allawi said.

Many insurgencies, and ethnic or sectarian wars, are also civil wars. Vietnam and Lebanon are examples.

Scholars say the civil war in Iraq has elements of both an insurgency - one side is struggling to topple what it sees as an illegitimate national government - and a sectarian war - the besieged government is ruled by Shiites and opposed by Sunni Arabs.

In Iraq, sectarian violence and Sunni- Shiite revenge killings have become a hallmark of the fighting, but the cycles of violence are ignited by militia leaders who have political goals. The former Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosovic, did this during the wars in the Balkans.

The civil strife in Iraq largely takes place in areas with mixed populations of Sunnis and Shiites, including the cities of Baghdad and Mosul, and the Diyala Province. Large swaths of Iraq experience little violence, but these areas are relatively homogenous and have few people.

Governments embroiled in civil wars often do not want to label them as such. In Colombia, officials insisted for years that the rebels were merely bandits.

Some Bush administration officials have argued that there is no obvious political vision on the part of the Sunni- led insurgent groups, so "civil war" does not apply.

But in fact, many scholars say the bloodshed in Iraq already puts the country in the top ranks of nations stricken by civil wars in the last half- century. Fearon and a colleague at Stanford, David Laitin, say the deaths per year in Iraq, with at least 50,000 reportedly killed since March 2003, place this conflict among the worst 20 civil wars of the past 60 years, on par with wars in Burundi and Bosnia.

The president and prime minister of Iraq avoid using the term civil war, but many Iraqis say extremists have thrust the country into one, even as moderates have struggled to pull back from the brink.

"You need to let the world know there's a civil war here in Iraq," said Adel Ibrahim, 44, a sheik in the Subiah tribe, which is mostly Shiite. "It's a crushing civil war. Mortars kill children in our neighborhoods. We're afraid to travel anywhere because we'll be killed in buses. We don't know who is our enemy and who is our friend."