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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 7-Dec-04
Iraq: As the January 30 election date approaches, pundits are talking about civil war again

Web Log - December, 2004

Iraq: As the January 30 election date approaches, pundits are talking about civil war again

Journalists and analysts are pumping up their warnings of civil war, as well-funded insurgents step up their car-bombings and other terror attacks.

For example, according to one analysis in the International Herald Tribune, the civil war has already begun. We're being told that it's because the Sunnis are rising up against the Shi'ites. We're also being told that it's like the violent Lebanese civil war that begin in the late 1970s.

It was just a few months ago that these same journalists were telling us that a civil war was breaking out because the Shi'ites were rising up, in sympathy with Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

What? You've forgotten that civil war? You have a short memory, don't you? Well, it's not surprising - Moqtada al-Sadr hasn't been in the news for several months now.

As we explained at the time, as we mocked the journalists and high-priced analysts who were making these pronouncements, a civil war is IMPOSSIBLE at this time in Iraq, because only a single generation has passed since the violent crisis war, the Iran/Iraq war of the 1980s. We've studied over 100 wars throughout all places and times throughout history, and there's NEVER been a new crisis war less than two generations after the end of the last crisis war. So a crisis war in Iraq today is impossible.

But what about that Lebanese civil war? Well, that was indeed a crisis civil war, but Lebanon's previous crisis war was in the 1920s, with the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. That's the same timeline as the Iran/Iraq war of the 1980s, and the Turkey-Kurd war that ran from 1984 to 2000. Those crisis wars all ran pretty much right on schedule, on the World War I timeline. A crisis war in Iraq today is impossible.

That's not to say that things are going to be easy in Iraq. Far from it. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's well-funded terrorist program, designed to derail the January 30 election and destability the entire region, is going to kill a lot more people, most Iraqis, before it's over.

As we've described in detail, Iraq is currently at the beginning of a generational awakening period. Awakening periods are characterized by enormous political turmoil, and we should expect a lot of conflict between Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds next year. Hopes for an American withdrawal in 2005 won't happen, but there won't be any civil war. (7-Dec-04) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 7-Dec-04 Iraq: As the January 30 election date approaches, pundits are talking about civil war again

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 7-Dec-04
Iraq: As the January 30 election date approaches, pundits are talking about civil war again