Hi J Chris Parson; Well, it's really not quite a civil war yet. If it gets there, it'll be pretty obvious.
During the 4-year long fight between the Republicans and the Democrats (1861-1865), something like 600,000 US citizens were killed, about 400 per day. The population at the time was around 31 million, a little larger than the current population of Iraq. A lot of those deaths were due to disease. Modern warfare has its own efficiencies; I doubt that the numbers would be smaller nowadays.
So as far as the numbers go, Iraq is getting up there. But they don't have the organized fighting with lines of supply and no mans lands and trenches and all that yet.
To a large degree, the death toll in the US civil war was low because the two sides were so well separated geographically. Iraq, by contrast, is a bit of a melee. I would think a real civil war in Iraq would kill a few thousand per day, maybe for as long as a year or two.
The worst wars are the ones that are between well balanced opponents and Iraq has that. The Shiites have the numbers in country, but the Sunni have the overall numbers in the region and also have the stronger military tradition. It was the military tradition of the Democrats in the Southern US that kept the rather unbalanced US civil war going as long as it did.
If I were a wagering man, I'd say the Sunnis eventually win, but it really depends on what Iran and the neighboring Arab states do. US actions won't influence the outcome much because we don't have a dog in this one. Only the Kurds pretend to like us (but do not trust us - for very good reasons) and they're too small to matter.
-- Carl |
