U.S. Expert (Scowcroft) Says Iraqi Election Could Trigger Civil War

[Strelnikov_]

Sounds like they have not yet brought Scowcroft to heel.

Things are getting better. Things are getting better every day.


U.S. Expert Says Iraqi Election Could Trigger Civil War
By Ronald Brownstein, Times Staff Writer
January 6, 2005

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fg-scowcroft7jan07,0,6459714.story?coll=la-home-headlines

. . .

Rather than leading toward stability, Scowcroft said he feared the election would further alienate Iraq's Sunni Muslim population and "has a great potential for deepening the conflict." He added: "Indeed, we may be seeing an incipient civil war (in Iraq) at the present time."

. . .

At the forum, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was national security adviser to President Carter, also offered a grim prognosis of conditions in Iraq. Brzezinski said the United States could meet its goals of producing a reasonably stable Iraqi government "if we are willing to put in 500,000 troops, spend $200 billion a year, probably have the draft and have some kind of wartime taxation."

. . .

Scowcroft said he believed the insurgency in Iraq already "is gradually morphing" from a resistance by elements of the former regime into a broader "Sunni revolt" driven by fear that the Shiite Muslim majority will elect a government controlled by its own members.

. . .

Scowcroft said that if the balloting produced an election dominated by Shiite Muslims, "that could in fact turn the Sunnis to revolution and civil war against a Shia government."

. . .

[MidwestTransplant]

1. No shit.

Imainge if the Sunni's boycott and the Shia get huge majorities. Two things will happen:

Either the election will be invalidated (which could lead to civil war too)or the Sunni's will rise up.

[rooboy]

2. The only civil war in Iraq...

is the Iraqi people vs the Americans and any Iraqis who collaborate with them.

[Larkspur]

3. The Civil War started a while ago

The insurgents have been for months killing Iraqi police, police recruits, and any Iraqi they think is working with the Americans, and recently they scored a big hit on a pro-American Iraqi governor.

The escalation of violence seems to me to be a warmup for massive attacks on election day. If the Sunnis don't vote, I can see the insurgents targeting Shiite and Kurdish voting polls on election day. It could be like slaughtering sheep. Of course the Shiite militias will be out, but in the areas where Sunnis and Shiites are even or the Sunnis dominate, I can see the Shiites getting slaughtered.

I predict a bloody Iraqi election day.