We're Making Progress

In Iraq, that is.

Paul Starobin, writing for the National Journal notes in this great treatise on civil wars:

[...]

"All states are like rocks, with fissures in those rocks," says Mark Stoyle, a historian at the University of Southampton in England, who is the author of the recently published Soldiers & Strangers: An Ethnic History of the English Civil War. "If the state is hit by a hammer blow, it will break along certain lines." That is what happened in 17th-century Britain under the disputed reign of King Charles I, Stoyle observed, and in his view, what is happening now in Iraq.

[...]

(98% more at link)

Gee, I wonder what the "hammer blow" in Iraq was? Could it be the US invasion? Nah..the US would never foment civil war(what an oxymoron). But it appears that indeed we have...yet again.

The tribal, nationalistic, and religious, differences between the three major 'ethnic groups' in Iraq has been elucidated by anyone and everyone with or without a truly informed opinion.

What Starobin does in this fine piece, is add some obvious some obvious human tendencies(greed - for oil in this case) as well as clearly defining just what constitutes a civil war.

The US let the genie out of the bottle in Iraq. And this is one angry, vengeful genie.

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