Empirical evidence suggests that ethnic and religious diversity may precipitate internal conflict or civil war. In weak, undemocratic states the likelihood of civil war increases. State strength can be measured by a state's ability to regulate social and economic relationships, extract resources, and use resources in determined ways. Strong rulers have formidable capabilities in these areas while weak rulers do not. In addition, the absence of participatory governments does not lend to legitimacy of the governments. This deep-seated legitimacy problem largely accounts for the volatile nature of Arab politics.

Max Weber observed: "Without legitimacy, a ruler, regime or governmental system is hard-pressed to attain the conflict-management capability essential for long-run stability and good government."

By all accounts, the current situation in Iraq may be described as the beginning of a civil war between Shi'ias and Sunnis. There is no other way to depict it.

The internal armed conflict or civil war followed an unholy attack on a revered Askariya shrine on February 22 in Samarra, sparking an all-out civil war. The destruction of the golden dome, built in 1905 and one of the holiest shrines of Shi'ia Islam, represented an escalation of the Sunni assault on the Shi'ites, a purposeful outrage intended to provoke an emotional backlash. Some observers described the determination of Sunnis to reassert its dominance. Since February 22, well over 600 people have been killed.

It is reported in the media that the Iraqi Minister for National Security Abdul Karim al-Enzy admitted that "we are on the edge of civil war." For the first time an Iraqi minister bitterly criticized the US by stating: "The truth is the Americans don't want us to reach the levels of courage and competence needed to deal with the insurgency because they want to stay here. They came for their own strategic interests and a lot of the world's oil is in the region." This is an anti-Washington stance by an Iraqi minister frustrated by rising violence in the country.

Newsweek (March 6) described the tragedy as "war of the mosques." The US Ambassador in Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad who was successful in Afghanistan says that the nation seemed as close to civil war.

The US likes to describe the current situation as the conspiratorial work of foreign terrorist elements, sent purportedly by Syria and Iran, to divide the Iraqi people. They pretend to believe that Iraqis are all united and have no hand in the current situation.

The entire world has witnessed the horror of Iraq and its long suffering, 82 per cent are reportedly "strongly opposed" to the presence of coalition troops. The coalition troops are also demoralized because they see no end of the war.

Dynamics of the situation
Sunnis see the national security forces as a Shi'ia-Kurd militia and in a civil war the most effective units are the ones that are communally homogeneous. Some political observers say that the bigger and stronger the US makes national Iraqi security forces, the more threatened the Sunnis feel and the harder they are likely to fight back for their self-preservation.

Kidnappings, murder, and mayhem have become commonplace in Iraqi towns and cities. and there is no question that the Iraqis have been living under a miserable time since the war. After all, what has the ordinary Iraqis in the street got to do with any of this disastrous mess created by the US-led war? Certainly they did not get themselves into it.

The Shi'ite militias have become a menace to Iraqi security forces and they are known as death squads. An unprecedented wave of unexplained execution-style killings and abductions in Iraq has heightened fears of an underground Shi'ite backlash against Sunnis. Despite constant official denials and empty promises to disband militias that operate inside the country with impunity, Baghdad had on of its worst days on March 8. Fifty people were abducted in a daylight raid on a private security agency and the city was reeling from the discovery the night before eighteen men in an abandoned bus.

Why does the US deny it?
It is because if they admit it, it is a total failure of their policy in the Middle East and in particular in Iraq. The neo-conservatives in the Bush administration believed they would establish freedom and democracy in Iraq which would be a model of democracy for other Arab countries. Secondly, their security programme is ineffective against the background of civil war.

Vietnam was a Maoist people's war while Iraq is a communal civil war with very different dynamics. The US military strategy for Iraq now centers on "Iraqization," the program to equip and train Iraqi security forces to replace US troops. For a Maoist war, this may make sense but in civil war Iraqization may not be the answer.

The US first denied that Iraq was another Vietnam. Now they deny that civil war is currently raging in Iraq. At a hearing at the US Senate Appropriations Committee, the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told that the US plan "is to prevent a civil war and if civil war breaks out, it is the Iraqi military, not US-led forces, will have to deal with it."

In recent times, Rumsfeld accused media of describing the situation in Iraq as "civil war." He must have noted that the Iraqi government has put press censorship and had ordered government-run morgues and hospitals suppress the body count from execution style shootings in the aftermath of Askariya shrine bombing. Politicians in almost all countries always have a habit of accusing media as they tend to hide real the situation. It is also a convenient way to mislead the public.

Against all advice and world opinion, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair went into the war in Iraq, for reasons many believe had little to do with the destruction of weapons of mass destruction. Arrogantly they dismissed the historic antecedents which dictated that without a strong ruler, Iraq's various factions would soon be in open conflict.

Iraq is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country. Its Arab population is nearly about 80 per cent, Kurds nearly 15-18 per cent, and rest are Persians and Turks. It is an Arab Shi'ite majority country, ruled by minority Sunnis until the collapse of Saddam Hussein. When the US occupied it in 2003, its administrator Paul Bremer made the ethnic and religious diversity worse by favouring the Shi'ite community and marginalizing Sunnis. That was a big mistake as religious diversity gradually led to animosity on Shi'ia-Sunni lines.

Conclusion
No talk of words like "victory" or "mission accomplished" are heard in Washington any more as the Bush administration enters its fourth year of war in Iraq next week. Pollsters were assessing the cost of the operation so far to the US at $204 billion and another $70 billion supplemental request was made this month to cover the cost of the military operations. The number of allied troops killed stands at over 2,525 (including 2, 318 US soldiers) and more than one hundred thousand Iraqi civilians are estimated to have died.

The eruption of civil war in Iraq will have many implications and would likely invite Sunni and Shi'ite participation from neighbouring Arab states. It would terminate the dream of Iraq serving as a model for other Arab countries. Vali Nasr, a professor at the US Naval Postgraduate School observed: "Just when it looked as if Muslims across the region were putting aside their differences to unite in protest against the Danish cartoons of the Prophet, the attack showed that Islamic sectarianism remains the greatest challenge to peace."

Barrister Harun ur Rashid is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.