In addition to the insurgency, is there a civil war going on between the Sunnis and Shias?
Well, it isn’t a civil war in the classic sense, like the American or the Spanish civil wars with two clearly defined sides. It’s a new kind of civil war that happens when a multiethnic society fractures. And it is not just one war, or even two — it’s about eight, nine, or even ten different conflicts taking place with different levels of intensity. There’s a struggle going on, for example, between Arab Shias and Sunnis, and between Arabs and Kurds in the northern territories around the Mosul area. There is a struggle between various Shia factions for local control in the south. There’s a struggle between mafias and criminal gangs and provincial authorities connected to the political parties. Recently, the Americans have taken to arming two very large Sunni insurgent groups that have turned against Al Qaeda. But at the same time, they are positioning themselves for a power play later on. These same groups are also using their weaponry against the Iraqi army. Didn’t the Sunnis and Shias
