MB Civic

By Roger Owen  |  June 11, 2006  |  The Washington Post

THE SPREAD of sectarian violence to the city of Basra in late May has revived talk of civil war in Iraq. It suggested that, in spite of a decrease in sectarian attacks in April, the pent-up anger triggered by the attack on the Shi’ite shrine in Samarra in February has the capacity to spread beyond Baghdad to other cities with mixed Sunni and Shi’ite populations.

Like Baghdad, Basra has the same combustible mix of militias, an unreliable police force, and radical insurgents, with the additional ingredient of shadowy groups loyal to Iran. As in Baghdad, it is probable that, while the police are heavily infiltrated by members of the militias, the militias themselves contain many young men trained as policemen by the British and Americans but happy to transfer their services to the sectarian leaders for more money and less danger.

All this suggests that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s efforts to stir up sectarian hatred in Iraq have already achieved their main goal, so that little will be changed by his death last week . The same logic applies to the announcement that the posts of minister of defense and of the interior have at last been filled.

In posing the question of whether the extension of the violence far beyond Basra marks yet another stage in a steady slide toward civil war we have to consider issues that go far beyond the fortunes of individual actors. One involves a question of expectations and of political expediency, the second of how to identify the tipping point. In both cases there is insight to be gained from situations elsewhere in the Arab world.

To address the question of expediency first, it is not in the interests of both Iraq’s sectarian leadership and the occupying forces either to proclaim a civil war or to act as though one had already broken out. The sectarian leadership’s continued authority depends on access to government power on an agreed basis and being able to divert national resources to their constituents. They fear a conflict in which influence will naturally pass to the men who command the militias, men whose own importance would be enhanced by expanding the violence, not putting it to an end.

Meanwhile, if a full civil war were to break out, the pressure for the Kurds to proclaim their own independence would become virtually unstoppable, a situation feared just as much by the Kurdish leaders, who are well aware of its uncontrollable consequences, as by those Sunnis and Shi’ites who have their own strong interest in preserving a united Iraq.

As for the Americans and the British, a civil war would not only make their own military positions more difficult, it would also undermine the claims of President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair to have created a functioning Iraqi democracy. Hence, they have no alternative but to continue their present policies of trying to create a national army while containing the violence as best they can in spite of growing casualties and growing opposition back home.

It is this foreign military presence that does much to make the present situation different from that in Lebanon before 1975 and Algeria in the late 1980s when, in the absence of any outside military force, an intensification of the fighting between different sections of the local population was widely predicted, and talk of a civil war was pretty much a self-fulfilling prophecy. Too many people expected it, prepared for it, and even welcomed it when it finally seemed to have broken out.

But if Iraq has not yet reached the stage of all-out civil war, what are signs that such a war may be coming and how will we be able to identify the point of no return?

One moment of considerable importance in Lebanon was the point at which power swung away from the sectarian political leadership and into the hands of those who commanded the militias out on the streets. In Iraq, however, there are, as yet, no regular Sunni militias. And with the main Shi’ite militia leaders still either in government or hoping for a post that will allow them control over the army or the police, their interest in promoting further violence remains at the least ambiguous. Nevertheless, with sectarian violence spreading to places less under the influence of the Baghdad-based national leadership, the threat of rule by militia has become suddenly much more real.

Second, if the history of Lebanon is anything to go by, the early stages of a civil war possess characteristics that have not revealed themselves in Iraq so far. There, cabinets of national unity were formed only to break up weeks or months later. Militias adopted fixed positions from which to challenge other militias. Appeals for truces were routinely made and routinely broken. Finally, the national army, placed under too much strain, broke up into its component sectarian parts. This may happen in Iraq, but it has not happened yet.

A third characteristic in Lebanon was foreign intervention, notably by the Syrians and less so by the Israelis. In present-day Iraq this situation is reversed, with the foreign occupiers making great efforts to prevent other outsiders — the Iranians, the Turks, or others — from joining in and making things worse.

Public opinion polls show more Iraqis feel they are better off if the British and Americans stay rather than if they go. This makes the efforts of the American military to prosecute those who have killed innocent Iraqi civilians more important. It is also the case that the existing civil violence has helped the occupiers to the extent of reducing popular desire to see them leave while making it more difficult for Sunnis and Shi’ites to combine against them.

Does it matter whether the present violence merits the title of civil war or not ? It does. As long as the complete break down of Iraqi society is postponed, hope remains that the country can avoid widespread suffering, rule by militias, economic disaster, and the continued degradation of the public services and the urban environment.

Roger Owen is the A. J. Meyer Professor of Middle East History at Harvard University.