Monday, February 27, 2006

By American standards, it's not much of a Civil War

You can win a bar bet every now and then by saying, “I’ll bet you a quarter that you cannot name the war in which the most Americas were killed.” Invariably, the dupe will blurt out WWII (~405,000). Wrong! WWI (~116,000)? Wrong! Vietnam (~58,000)? Wrong!

There were more Americans killed, most put the figure at 620,000, but some say over 700,000 combined Union and Confederate battle and non-battle deaths, during the American Civil War than in all of America’s other great struggles combined before and since. Now that’s a Civil War. What’s going on in Iraq by comparison looks more like a Crips/Bloods turf war in LA.

Who gains by a civil war in Iraq? The Shiites, as a majority, can wield power peacefully through politics. The Kurds occupy the most stable and prosperous area of Iraq. The Sunni know that they will lose a civil war. So who does a civil war benefit? The terrorists, the Iranians, the Syrians - that’s who and no doubt that’s who fomenting the violence.

Lex has noted here before that worst thing that could happen in Iraq is NOT that it is divided along peaceful democratic Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni lines in some loose confederation. The worst thing that can happen in Iraq is that remains unified as a hostile terrorist state. Winston Churchill drew the lines that make up today’s Iraq without regard for tribal, political of cultural concerns. Maybe it’s time for Iraqis to redraw those lines with tribal, political, and cultural considerations in mind. Or maybe they’ll tire of outside agitation, unite against it and decide that they’ll all just get along.

No comments: