By Brigitte L. Nacos
After avoiding the term “civil war” for many months, a
number of leading media organizations abandoned their habit to repeat the
administration’s preferred terminology and decided to call the situation in
Iraq what is has been for some time—a civil war. Actually, what happens in Iraq now may
actually be worse than a civil war since nobody knows at any given time what
faction is fighting whom. While the President and his supporters continue to
pretend that there is no civil war but merely an Al Qaeda provoked sectarian
conflict, anarchy may be the best
characterization. Yet, the right-wing warriors beat up on NBC News in
particular for finally describing the chaos in Iraq as a civil war. To be sure,
terms are important. The more the American people recognize the hostilities in Iraq as a civil war, the less they are willing to
have U.S.soldiers deployed and attacked and killed in the midst of a deadly internal
conflict. As Thomas Ricks and Robin Wright report in
today’s Washington Post, there is increasingly a realization among Washington law-makers of both parties and U.S. military leaders on the ground
that the Iraqis themselves must end this blood letting.
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