Political Gridlock, Violence, Continue

"Caleb Carr argues that maybe the Iraqis just need to have their civil war. He makes analogies to the United States in the 1860s.

But Iraq is not like the US in the 1860s. It is an industrialized, modern country floating in modern armaments. A million or more people could die in such a war, and millions be displaced. For another thing, Iraq unlike the US is not a virtual island. It is deeply imbricated in social, religious, political and economic relations among Saudi Arabia, Iran, Jordan, Turkey, etc. That is, a civil war in Iraq won't stay a purely Iraqi affair. If Shiites are massacred and look as though they may lose, Iran will come in on their side. Likewise the Saudis will fund a defense of the Sunni Arabs, and the vast Sunni Arab hinterland gives them strategic depth. And, a Kurdish massacre of Turkmen, if that happened in Kirkuk, would certainly bring in the Turkish government.

Not only would an Iraq civil war not stay in Iraq, it would not leave the world unscathed. A regional guerrilla war with pipeline sabotage could take 15% of the world petroleum production off the market. If you don't know that the total production is 85-86 million barrels a day, and don't know what Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Kuwait produce and export of that, you shouldn't be prescribing civil war in the region."
Juan Cole

Well at least I'm not the only one that thinks so.