CIVIL WAR?….Spencer Ackerman is depressed about the future of Iraq:
The January election is now itself on track to deliver what used to be considered the worst-case scenario (but which is now acceptable to some advocates of the war): civil war.
Bottom line: it’s impossible to delay the elections because that would cause a decisive U.S. break with the Shia majority. On the other hand, the 20% of the population that’s Sunni is now dead set against the elections and considers them illegitimate. That’s more than enough people to keep a civil war in high gear.
I suppose the best hope now is that in the end the Sunni minority will back down and eventually take part in the elections ? if not in January, perhaps sometime down the road. It’s a pretty thin hope, though.
