Civil War Begins

Three years ago, virtually all serious people of both political parties gave fair warning to the Bush administration of the hornet's nest they were flying into by invading Iraq.....and that was back when everybody thought the nation was in possession of weapons of mass destruction. Here was a nation much like the former Yugoslavia. Iraq's cultural and political bond was limited to arbitrary lines drawn on a map decades ago, and holding it together was the iron fist of a madman who handled dissent with the kind of cold-blooded ferocity that would even make Joseph Stalin wince. Much like the patchwork of long-squabbling ethnic groups of the former Yugoslavia were so afraid of their Communist government that they managed to stop fighting amongst themselves for a few years in the 20th century, Saddam Hussein inspired the same kind of fear amongst the divided religious and ethnic groups of his secular dictatorship. Unfortunately, Yugoslavia's "liberation" after the fall of Communism brought about its tragic and bloody demise in the decade to come as freedom proved to be the trigger for ethnic slaughter. After the events of today, it became frighteningly clear that Iraq is on the cusp of its own civil war, the very thing the Bush administration was warned about by nearly everybody who understands the logistics of occupation in general and of ethnically diverse Iraq specifically.

It was actually surprising that it took this long for festering ethnic tensions to boil over in Iraq. Mosque bombings by Sunni insurgents provoked the bloodthirsty ire of the Shi'ite majority, who control a near-majority of the new Iraqi government and who are resented by most Sunnis for consolidating political power. The events of today confirmed what everybody from Colin Powell to Madeline Albright to James Baker predicted during Bush's naive and infantile rush to war back in 2002 and 2003....that if we break it, we own it. Whatever America's intentions were in removing Saddam Hussein from power, it will come with a human toll far gorier than anything Hussein brought about. That human toll now looks to inevitably be a civil war that will last for years and that will condemn hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and tens of thousands of Americans to violent deaths. You gotta wonder how many of the narrow-minded grunts who bulldozed Dixie Chicks CD's three years ago after their criticism of George Bush's war policy are watching headlines from Iraq tonight, 33 months after their leader's "Mission Accomplished" publicity stunt, still convinced we did the right thing waging a "pre-emptive" attack against a nation with no means to attack us.

Lastly, however, the bloodshed of this developing civil war finally puts to rest the typically mindless talking point that Bush uses to bait his critics.....the "do you think Iraq would be better off with Saddam Hussein still in power?" meme. As much of a monster as Saddam Hussein was (and still is), the alternative we're watching unfold before our eyes make the obvious answer to that question as resounding, "Yes!"