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Article: Why Islam lies at the heart of Iraq's civil war.(OPINION)(Viewpoint essay)
- Article from:
- The Christian Science Monitor
- Article date:
- June 2, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 The Christian Science Publishing Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Byline: Monica Duffy Toft
Cambridge, Mass. -- It matters what we call things. It took too long for the Bush administration to admit that its intended liberation of Iraq had become an occupation, that US forces faced a home-grown insurgency there, and that a transition to Iraqi democracy might not result in a nation that supports US interests.
Finally, not until 2007 did the Pentagon acknowledge that Iraqi sectarian violence had crossed a threshold to become a civil war.
But policymakers still haven't come to terms with the implications of that fact. If they did, they'd see that a wisely executed withdrawal of US-led forces could well be the ...