The Worsening Situation in Iraq

Disturbing headline at The Independent: "'The civil war in Iraq has already begun': Politician claims conflict has started and warns it will be ‘worse than Syria.’" So saith, allegedly at least, a "senior Iraqi politician," identity and sectarian affiliation unstated.

Hyperbole, I hope, but sectarian clashes are worsening and the UN says the death counts are up; also the potential conflicts between the central government and the Kurdish Region are intensifying.

While it's pretty bloody hard for anything to be "worse than Syria," there are also already enough synergistic interactions between Syrian Jihadis/Iraqi Jihadis, Syrian Sunnis/Iraqi Sunnis/Lebanese Sunnis, Syrian Kurds/Iraqi Kurds/Turkish Kurds, and Syrian Shi‘ites/Iraqi Shi‘ites/Iranian Shi‘ites/Lebanese Hizbullah, that just the headline is enough to give one pause, to put it mildly. The possibility of the Syrian conflict metastasizing into a regional sectarian war is everybody's nightmare scenario. Let's hope this is a worst-case scenario. Please.