It has become a commonplace for Americans to describe our current war with Iran as stuck in a kind of limbo, neither full war nor real peace. We’re not the only ones. Iraq finds itself caught in a limbo of its own, between America and Iran, between the tolerable and the intolerable, between progress and relapse.
And like our own muddled state of affairs, theirs too is one largely—but not solely—of our devising.
To understand Iraq’s current predicament, there are three things one must recognize. That the fiercest political divides are no longer among Sunni, Shiite, and Kurd, but among the Shiites themselves. That the prime ministry has increasingly become a facade hiding a battle among powerbrokers behind the scenes. And that Iraq may prove to be the worst casualty of the Iran war, despite playing barely a bit part in it.
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