Omnia Iraqia in tres partes divisa est

Tristero, posting at Digby's Hullabaloo, highlights several interesting observations made at a September 2005 meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Among the questions asked of the assembled experts were: (1)What constitutes a civil war, and (2) whether the situation in Iraq qualifies or not.

Go read what the experts had to say 6 months ago. To me, this response by David Phillips seems increasingly prophetic.

"It’s already civil war. Civil war is sectarian-based conflict that’s systematic and coordinated. This has been going on for some time [in Iraq]...Next, what happens is the political process breaks down and sectarian strife worsens, Iraqi Kurds withdraw their cooperation from the government, ethnic conflict ensues, and Iraq starts to fragment.

This will force the United States to manage the deconstruction of Iraq, meaning the country is not viable, and the United States can’t have 140,000 troops in the middle of a civil war. We’ll have to withdraw troops to the north, draw a line in the thirty-sixth parallel [which formerly demarcated the largely Kurdish no-fly zone from the rest of Iraq], and secure U.S. national interests, in the form of Kirkuk’s oil fields and protecting democracy in northern Iraq." [emph added]

So let's see if the line is drawn at the 36th parallel by Memorial Day.