Civilian War

In Monday's post on the current state of Iraq, I mentioned that there were legitimate reasons to fear a civil war, one noteable reason being that the Kurds themselves fought brutally against one another throughout the 90's and killed thousands of their own people. I mentioned that Jalal Talabani was one of the two Kurdish leaders at the time who played a key role in fueling this conflict, which is significant since he is the current president of Iraq. So, keeping his past actions in mind, read this opening sentence from an AP report dealing with statements Talabani made earlier today:

"Iraq's president openly praised Shiite and Kurdish militias in a statement Wednesday that could further antagonize Sunni Arabs at a time of growing fears of sectarian strife."

The emphasis is mine; you can read the entire article here.

The formation of militias would be a disaster for Iraq, and I worry that the situation there will begin to resemble, not Vietnam, but Colombia, which has been bogged down in a civil war for 40 years now, thanks to ongoing guerilla/militia violence. When militias form, it typically means that there is a serious lack of basic governmental infrastructure, and the resulting chaos tends to perpetuate a nations inability to stabilize and coalesce into a self-regulating system. If the insurgency continues to slow down the formation of the new Iraqi government, people in Iraq, at some point, will begin to take matters into their own hands, i.e. form militias. And what is Talabani's reaction? He's for it apparently, I guess his first go-round with civil war wasn't quite terrible enough. However, to his credit, the Prime Minister in Iraq, al-Jaafari, disputed the idea that militias would be helpful, so atleast someone there is thinking this through.

Anyway, just wanted to toss this out, thanks...