Posted by
Nerdus Maximus on Friday, August 04, 2006 7:44:23 AM
When
Americans hear the phrase “civil war” in relation to the situation in Iraq we are
likely to think of our own “Civil War”.
This can be very misleading. The source of conflict that defined the sides
in our “Civil War” was very different than in Iraq
or elsewhere in the Middle East.
Any true
Son of the South still refers to the U.S. Civil War as “The War Between the
States”. The dominant determiner of
which side a person would be on was residency in a “slave state” or a “free state”. At its base this was an economic conflict with strong ethical overtones. This is a stark contrast to conflicts in the Middle East that are being referred to as “civil wars”. The dominant determiner of which side a
person will be on there is to which branch of Islam they are at least a nominal
adherent. An Iraqi Shiite is more likely
to side with an Iranian Shiite than with an Iraqi Sunni. As a result we see situations where Iranian
Shiites come into Iraq
to fight in the “civil war”. This is
much like if the U.S. Civil War had included large numbers of pro-slavery Spaniards
and anti-slavery Englishmen who came to the United States to do battle for
their sides. It is a huge mistake to
think fo the U.S. Civil War when you hear the phrase “civil war” used of
current conflicts in the Middle East.
The best
example of a similar conflict in a Western democracy is probably the conflict
in Northern Ireland
between Catholics and Protestants. While
there were not a great number of direct actors from other countries, the base
of the conflict was a religious affiliation.
It also featured terrorist cells who hated each other and the national
authority equally.
What is a
“civil war”? That is hard to say, but
one thing that is certain is that the current conflicts in the Middle East bear very little resemblance to the U.S.
Civil War.
Nerdus
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