Civil wars can be especially atrocious as neighbors kill each other at close range, but they, too, have a purpose in this world - they can bring lasting peace by destroying the will to fight, and by removing the motives and opportunities for further violence.
England's civil war in the mid-17th century assured subsequent centuries of political stability under parliament and a limited monarchy. But first there had to be a war with several pitched battles and some killings on the side, including the decapitation of King Charles I, who had claimed absolute power by divine right.
The United States had its own civil war two centuries later, which established the rule that states cannot leave the union alone or in company, abolishing slavery in the process. The destruction was vast and the casualties immense compared to all subsequent American wars given the size of the population. But without the decisive victory of the union, two separate and quarrelsome republics might still endure between Canada and Mexico, periodically at war with each other - except that secession is contagious so that the separation of more states from each side would have ensued, with more wars fought between them.
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Latin American disunity and warfare are not really comparable because religious unity under Catholicism has limited the damage, with a few bloody exceptions such as the Chaco war 1928-1933 in which some three million were killed.
Even Switzerland had its civil war in 1847, out of which came the limited, but sturdy unity of its confederation. Close proximity, overlapping languages and centuries of common history were not enough to resolve differences among the cantons. They had to fight briefly, with 86 killed in all to strike a balance of strength among them. Only then could the Swiss settle down in lasting peace.
Now it is the turn of Iraq.
Iraq's Kurds were never at ease under Arab rule - at least some of their tribes were already fighting for independence more than 60 years ago. But it was not until the land expropriations, deportations and massacres of the Saddam Hussein years that most of the Kurds united to demand the right to rule themselves. Now it only remains to be determined if the Kurds will have their own state within a loose Iraqi confederation or outside it, in full independence. Either way, the long civil war between Arabs and Kurds could finally end. Because both Turkey and Iran are even more hostile to the Kurds, their new state is likely to cooperate peacefully with the Arabs, and will certainly depend on them for access to the Persian Gulf.
The Shi'ite majority among the Arabs of Iraq has always been ruled by Sunnis, for centuries under the Ottoman Empire and later under Arab kings and dictators who were all Sunnis. But the sectarian difference was not always important, and among more westernized and better educated Iraqi Arabs, there was much mingling with intermarriage not uncommon. For the majority that is neither westernized nor educated, sectarian affiliations have long been part of core identities, but they did not generate much conflict until three recent developments.
Saddam Hussein's attempt to modernize Iraq in a secular direction infuriated Shia prelates, who protested against village clinics headed by female doctors and other such abominations, in turn triggering brutal repression by the regime, which Shi'ites inevitably viewed as Sunni repression. In any case, the spread of Salafist fundamentalism among the Sunnis mandates violence against the Shia, who are heretics deserving of capital punishment, according to the Wahhabis and other Salafists.
Finally, while today's theocratic Iran is not necessarily viewed as a model by Iraq's Arab Shi'ites, it certainly demonstrates that Shi'ites not always need to be ruled by Sunnis - they can govern themselves. That, in turn, provokes the ire of the many Sunni Arabs who believe that Iraq belongs to them, regardless of their share of the country's total population. The resulting sectarian hatred is now inflicting a heavy toll of casualties by way of shootings, bombings and the execution of captives.
The fundamental factors that are causing the violence are now impossible to reverse. Physical separation, therefore, is the remaining means of limiting the killings. That is now under way, thanks to the very violence that is driving out one sect or the other from mixed villages, towns and city districts. The process is painful and especially cruel for those who still feel no sectarian hostility, including the offspring of mixed marriages, but that is one more way in which civil war achieves its purpose of bringing peace.
If the kings of continental Europe, royal cousins to Charles I, had combined forces to save his life, the principle of absolute monarchy, and Britain's peace, they could perhaps have prevented the casualties of the civil war, but only at the price of perpetuating strife by blocking progress toward a stable political system. Likewise, the British and other European great powers could have sent expeditionary armies to stop the carnage of the American civil war, but in so doing they would have prevented the eventual emergence of a peacefully united republic.
Iraq's civil wear is no different. It too should be allowed to bring peace.
The writer is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
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