Civil war spreads across Iraq as bomb at Shia mosque kills 59

Patrick Cockburn is reporting that civil war is breaking out across central Iraq with violence spreading rapidly through the region as Sunnis and Shia's seek revenge in the wake of the tit for tat killings that have broken out since the most recent suicide bombing which blew up outside the golden-domed mosque in Kufa, killing at least 59 and injuring more than 130 Shia.

In the past 10 days, while the world has been absorbed by the war in Lebanon, sectarian massacres have started to take place on an almost daily basis, leading observers to fear a level of killing approaching that of Rwanda immediately before the genocide of 1994. On a single spot on the west bank of the Tigris river in north Baghdad, between 10 and 12 bodies have been drifting ashore every day.

The suicide bomber in Kufa actually posed as a possible employer, stopping his truck in a field where people stood waiting for work and saying, "I need Labourers". When some men boarded, he detonated the truck killing all on board and many who stood nearby.

The severe escalation in sectarian killings started nine days ago when black-clad Shia militiamen sealed off the largely Sunni al-Jihad district in west Baghdad and slaughtered every Sunni they identified, killing more than 40 of them after glancing at their identity cards. Since then there has been a tit-for-tat massacre almost every day.

On Monday, gunmen - almost certainly Sunni - first attacked Shia mourners at a funeral near Mahmoudiya, a market town 20 miles south of Baghdad. They then shot another 50 people in the local market.

George Bush and Tony Blair, as we know from their inane overheard conversation yesterday, still think that Syria and Iran are behind this as they so fear a successful democracy being established in the Middle East. They are simply being delusional.

The situation in Iraq is spiralling out of control because the occupation forces have been unable to establish order. Neither Bush nor Blair have ever addressed that fact. Indeed, both seem to be wilfully ignoring it whilst uttering meaningless platitudes.

While the White House and Downing Street still refuse to use the phrase "civil war", Iraqis in the centre of the country have no doubt what is happening. Baghdad's mortuary alone received 1,595 bodies in June, and it has got worse since then.

By the time Bush and Blair finally realise what they have unleashed here, I sincerely doubt there will even be a country called Iraq; it will have fractured into three separate mini-states - causing deep tensions with Turkey and Syria regarding their Kurdish populations - and southern Iraq will almost certainly align itself to Iran, if it does not submerge itself completely into it's borders.

So, after years of fighting and tens of thousands of needless deaths, the victor will be Iran.

History will not be kind to Bush and Blair who have initiated an even worse foreign policy intervention than Suez. Like Suez, this was a war of choice carried out with great arrogance and certainty of victory. Bush is said to worship Churchill and rather fancy himself as cast in the same mould. What a pity he didn't take the time to consider his own hero's words:

Never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter.

~Sir Winston Churchill

The man who prematurely concluded, "Mission accomplished" all those months ago is hardly likely to ever concede defeat. But, whether he admits it or not, it's staring him in the face.

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