What Defines A Civil War?

Iraqi Police Linked to Mass Abduction
Read the full story at The Washington Post

I read the news today. Oh boy.
When armed gunmen entered the Ministry of Higher Education in downtown Baghdad, they pretended to be securing the area for a visit from "the American ambassador." They came wearing official looking uniforms, in a large convoy in vehicles with mounted machine guns. Men and women were separated, some were detained and apparently removed from the Ministry, some were later released. On the face of it, and in light of similar kidnappings recently, it's easy to call this just another case of sectarian violence. Or is it?

To live in Baghdad today, must be to live in constant fear. Every day bodies -- not just two or 3 -- but 20, 30, 40 at a time are found beaten, tortured and executed. Every day. Ride a bus to school or to the market, and you're likely to be blown to bits. Choose your method: road side bomb or a seatmate who detonates himself and sends you to meet your maker. Are you a baker by profession? You're a marked man, and not just by the flour on your apron. Drive an ambulance? Not for long. Thought about joining Baghdad PD? That's probably gonna get you killed. And probably before you've had a chance to don your uniform for the first time.

When do we stop calling this sectarian violence and call it civil war?

In an excellent article that first appeared in The Washington Post, April 9, 2006, James D. Fearon, Professor of Political Science at the Freeman Spogli Institure for International Studies at Stanford University, defines it as:

Civil war refers to a violent conflict between organized groups within a country that are fighting over control of the government, one side's separatist goals, or some divisive government policy. By this measure, the war in Iraq has been a civil war not simply since the escalation of internecine killings following the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February, but at least since the United States handed over formal control to an interim Iraqi government in June 2004.

The Bush administration's hesitation to confront what they have wrought in Iraq, their "spreading of democracy," their nation building, takes it toll on the Iraqis daily. And their refusal to call it what it is, hinders -- no, prevents -- them from arriving at a solution to this terrible problem. Neither President Bush nor his Iraq Study Group will arrive at a solution until they acknowledge this painful -- especially for the Iraqis -- inevitable truth.

What defines a civil war? Iraq.