Iraq is not on the verge of civil war -- it is in a bloody Sunni-Shiite showdown right now. Actually that's been true since the beginning of the insurgency three years ago. Today, however, the contours of this conflict are so horrific, so widespread, and so extreme that what was true on a lesser scale thirty-six months ago has become self-evident today. The New York Times reported last Sunday, April 2nd, that a self-styled "ethnic cleansing" is now taking place in Iraq, with Sunnis and Shiites moving to safer enclaves of their own tribal brethren, accentuating the religious split and making compromise almost impossible. This makes hallucinatory -- if not downright fantasy-land -- the Bush Administration's promises that after the transfer of sovereignty in 2004, the two sets of elections in 2005, and the referendum on the Iraqi constitution, Iraq would settle into a peaceful democracy. What will be its next political milestone -- Hussein's execution?
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