"Will Civil War Bring Lasting Peace to Iraq?"

In an op-ed article posted in the LA Times, Edward N. Luttwak, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies says that “history shows that civil wars should be fought without outside foreign interference before stability prevails.” Mr. Luttwak believes that “civil wars can bring lasting peace by destroying the will to fight and by removing the motives and opportunities for further violence.” In his article, Mr. Luttwak uses examples of the civil wars fought in England, the United States, and Switzerland. In each case he notes that “political stability” was the result of civil war. In Mr. Luttwak’s opinion “attempts to stop the killing by U.S. and British forces are feeble.” He notes that the hatred among the Shiites and the Suniis is “theological hatred” and believes that “there is no hatred as strong as theological hatred” and therefore “it is time for outsiders to step aside and let the Iraqis fight it out among themselves, ending with each controlling its own region.”
Mr. Luttwak goes on the say that he believes “the U.S. should disengage their troops from populated areas as much as possible, give up the intrusive checkpoints and patrols and abandon the effort to build up military and police forces.” It is Mr. Luttwak’s belief that “the sooner the Kurds, Sunni, Shiites, Turkmen, and smaller minorities can define their own natural and stable boundaries within which they feel safe, the sooner the violence will come to an end.”

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