Understanding Iraq

Abstract

The war in Iraq can be understood neither as a sectarian nor as a civil war. The notion of the Iraq conflict as a sectarian conflict, which is propagated by the occupier, suggests that the spiral of violence is due not to the occupation, but is a manifestation of the internal logic of Iraqi society. Thus the responsibility is shifted to the victims of the war. At the same time, the notion of sectarian conflict implicitly refers to internal struggles for power within the governing and ruling classes and their opponents. There can be no civil war under the occupation. The idea that there is a civil war is put about by the occupiers and the governing cliques in Iraq to further legitimize the occupation and the presence of an ever-increasing number of troops and forces, on which the position of power of the governing cliques and the ruling classes relies. Rather than a civil war, the violence in Iraq today reflects the correlation of political power and economic interest between the Bush administration and the Iraqi ruling and governing classes.