War-torn Iraq 'facing collapse'

[many a good man]

Source: BBC

...

The Chatham House report, written by Gareth Stansfield, a Middle East expert, is unremittingly bleak, says BBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins.

Mr Stansfield argues that the break-up of Iraq is becoming increasingly likely.

In large parts of the country, the Iraqi government is powerless, he says, as rival factions struggle for local supremacy.

The briefing paper, entitled Accepting Realities in Iraq, says: "There is not 'a' civil war in Iraq, but many civil wars and insurgencies involving a number of communities and organisations struggling for power."

...

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6663935.stm

---

And I thought ONE civil war was bad enough!

[SpiralHawk]

1. "Mission Accomplished" - Commander AWOL & republicon corporate cronies

"Keep those Massive War Profits rolling in." - Commander AWOL & republicon cronies

[callous taoboy]

2. But, but ,but I had the pleasure of waking up to ABC radio news

featuring the voices of three MEpublican senators all taking pot-shots at the "defeatist" Democrats, and the one voice of Senator Clinton explaining why she supported, eventually, time-lines this time.

[rodeodance]

3. "Accepting Realities"--we can only hope----but I doubt the WH will!!

[Massachusetts]

4. FUBAR

Impeach the Chimp!

[libodem]

5. But does Collapse equal "Victory"

We could reframe that complete Collapse and Anarchy is what we wanted to achieve. There never was a clear definition of what winning means. Saddam is gone, the region is destabilized and a terrorist state, what more did we want? Oh, the oil, you say?

[Mika]

8. Victory = Iraq oil "sharing" law. n/t

[donkeyotay]

11. Quagmire accomplished nt

[brooklynite]

6. Here's the document...

The full 12-page report is available at http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/pdf/research/mep/BPIraq0507.pdf

Summary

• Iraq has fractured into regional power bases. Political, security and economic
power has devolved to local sectarian, ethnic or tribal political groupings. The
Iraqi government is only one of several ‘state-like’ actors. The regionalization of
Iraqi political life needs to be recognized as a defining feature of Iraq’s political
structure.

• There is not ‘a’ civil war in Iraq, but many civil wars and insurgencies involving
a number of communities and organizations struggling for power. The surge is
not curbing the high level of violence, and improvements in security cannot
happen in a matter of months.

• The conflicts have become internalized between Iraqis as the polarization of
sectarian and ethnic identities reaches ever deeper into Iraqi society and causes
the breakdown of social cohesion.

• Critical destabilizing issues will come to the fore in 2007–8. Federalism, the
control of oil and control of disputed territories need to be resolved.

• Each of Iraq’s three major neighbouring states, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey,
has different reasons for seeing the instability there continue, and each uses
different methods to influence developments.

• These current harsh realities need to be accepted if new strategies are to have
any chance of preventing the failure and collapse of Iraq. A political solution will
require engagement with organizations possessing popular legitimacy and needs
to be an Iraqi accommodation, rather than a regional or US-imposed approach.

Chatham House is one of the world's leading organizations for the analysis of international issues. It is membership-based and aims to help individuals and organizations to be at the forefront of developments in an ever-changing and increasingly complex world.

[slackmaster]

7. How will we be able to tell if it collapses?

It looks pretty much collapsed already.

:shrug:

[Theduckno2]

9. Could this be the foundation for a course change in Iraq?

Given the upcoming change in British PM, could this be an indication of policy change in Iraq? I think it could very well be.

I just wonder if Bush/Cheney will get the message.

The reality of "...unremittingly bleak..." sure flies in the face of Senator McCain's Baghdad market stroll, doesn't it?

[E-Z-B]

10. Take a look at today's news flowing out of Iraq:

BAGHDAD - -snip-
He said the dog tags of one of the four American soldiers who died were missing and apparently had been taken from the scene by the attackers. That could explain why the military has only been able to identify three of the four dead U.S. soldiers.

-snip-

An al-Qaida front group, the Islamic State of Iraq, has said it captured the U.S. soldiers and warned the Americans in a Web statement on Monday to call off the hunt “if you want their safety.”

-snip-

For the second time in a week, they set off a bomb near a bridge in southeastern Baghdad on Thursday, killing two civilians and wounding five, police said.

Last Friday, a large fuel truck barreled toward a checkpoint at the new Diyala Bridge and blew up, killing about a dozen people, police said.

-snip-

At 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, a roadside bomb exploded near the entrance to the bridge, killing at least two Iraqi pedestrians and wounding five, police said on condition of anonymity out of concern for their own security.

-snip-

At 6 p.m. Wednesday, about 10 gunmen hijacked a bus in Baqouba that was traveling from Baghdad to Kirkuk in northern Iraq, police said. The attackers took 20 women and an unknown number of children off the vehicle, then left with 23 male passengers as hostages, apparently heading toward a nearby al-Qaida in Iraq stronghold, police said.

An apparently coordinated attack by five suicide car bombers and scores of militants backed by mortars and bombs killed four policemen in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Wednesday night and injured 30 other people, including 14 police officers, police said.

The attacks began after 7 p.m., when two suicide bombers detonated car bombs near the police station in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Another two suicide car bombers blew up near the headquarters of the Democratic Party of Kurdistan in another area of town, said Wathiq al-Hamdani, provincial chief of police.

Another suicide car bomber targeting police was shot by guards before he could reach his target, al-Hamdani said.

The militants followed their attacks with mortar blasts, police patrols came under attack from roadside bombs and nearly 250 militants deployed throughout the city during the violence, he said.

The series of attacks killed four police and wounded 30 other people, police said.

Police fought back, killing 15 militants, al-Hamdani said.

On Wednesday, mortar rounds hammered the U.S.-controlled Green Zone for a second day, killing at least two people, wounding about 10 more and raising new fears for the safety of workers at the nerve center of the American mission in Iraq.

About a dozen shells crashed into the 3.5-square-mile area of central Baghdad about 4 p.m. Wednesday, sending terrified pedestrians racing for the safety of concrete bunkers. Motorists abandoned their cars and sprinted for cover. Sirens wailed and loudspeakers warned people to seek safety.

-snip-.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18718635/