Does it have to be war?

摘要

Even before the invasion three years ago, there were warnings that the shock of violent change could fragment Iraq into ethnic and sectarian parts. Iraqis themselves have tended to dismiss such fears. But the spectre of a civil war, pitting the historically dominant Sunni minority against the newly enfranchised Shia majority, is now looming, most alarmingly. In the early morning of February 22nd, saboteurs overcame guards at the Askariya shrine at Samarra, north of Baghdad, an important site of Shia pilgrimage. The explosives they planted did more than destroy the gilded dome that hoods the tombs of the 10th and 11th imams in what most Shias believe to be a divine chain of leadership among descendants of the Prophet.