Arnold de Bourchgrave does a good job of laying out the realities regarding Iraq in this Washington Times piece. The growing American cries to withdraw its forces altogether or to divide Iraq along religious-ethnic grounds (Kurds-Sunni-Shiite) are simplistic on the surface and they portend catastrophic consequences for the U.S., as well as for the Iraq region. The latter includes potential civil wars in neighboring Arab countries, according to Jordan's King Abdullah.

De Bourchgrave points out that many Iraqi cities have sizeable Sunni and Shiite populations, meaning that it's impossible to divide Iraq into truly separate districts. At the same time, there are dozens of private militias - 23 in Baghdad alone, each competing for narrow interests. On the populist theme of declaring the current situation a civil war in Iraq, de Bourchgrave says it is more like a civil war within a civil war.