We were at the ice-cream store. My well-read friend said: “It seems to me in Iraq there’s a small fanatical group resisting change and a growing group of nationalists trying to build a modern country.” Well, it doesn’t seem that way to me, but where did he acquire this view? Might it have to do with the prevalent lexicon on Iraq and especially use of the word “insurgent”?

In the early days of U.S. occupation, resisters there were derided as thugs, terrorists, outside infiltrators or dead-enders. They got no respect. When they didn’t just slouch away, “insurgents” came into vogue. It’s a more dignified term with a better pedigree, going back to the U.S. Civil War and the 1848 revolutions in Europe. It connotes a sort of rough-hewn opposition to a ruling power, local or foreign. But it has a vanilla quality, it’s vague, and covers over something specific and unsettling: incipient civil war among Iraq’s Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish communities.

Because this reality gets hidden behind a bland term, most reports of the “insurgency” don’t make sense. Reporters note that insurgents mainly kill other Iraqis, which suggests they are a hate-crazed minority or just foreigners. President George W. Bush made that point in a speech yesterday. But if you substitute “Sunni insurgents” for insurgents, it looks different.

Try it with a line from a news story on next week’s constitutional referendum: “Insurgents have vowed to wreck the vote.” That makes them sound like George Bush’s anti-democracy fighters, the ones who, unlike us, prefer slavery to freedom. But add “Sunni” and it’s suddenly about conflict with the Shiite politicians who wrote the constitution, largely excluded Sunni interests and then, in a power play, tried to change the rules to make its passage certain — until the UN forced them to back off. It doesn’t sound so crazed any more; it’s about power politics in a chaotic, violent country.

Or: Have you noticed a lack of parallelism? The insurgents are always bombing other Iraqis (or Muslims), and don’t get bombed back. But the targeted mosques are Shiite, and the targeted police or Iraqi army centres largely recruit Shiites, ever since the U.S. dissolved Saddam’s army after the invasion. Counterpose to that the humungous U.S. attacks on cities like Fallujah in the “Sunni triangle,” normally assisted by Iraqi troops who are mainly Shiite or Kurdish. Sounds like tit-for-tat to me.

Next week, (Sunni) insurgents may indeed try to disrupt voting in Shiite areas, but there are current U.S. and Iraqi — i.e., Shiite and Kurdish — assaults on Sunni cities in western Iraq which will surely upstage the balloting there. What does it amount to? A burgeoning civil war inside an anti-occupation resistance.

Before the U.S. invasion, it was hard to imagine a worse life for Iraqis than under Saddam. Yet here it is. A Baghdad citizen told The New York Times, “No peace. No power. Do you think this is life? It is hell?” At least the torture and terror are gone, or are they? Look at Abu Ghraib. Most Iraqis had made a grim accommodation with their psychopathic regime, in return for electricity, education, jobs, secularism, some gender equality and limited stability, while hoping for better times. Now they face civil war, a nightmare their British and U.S. invaders left far behind in their own bloody pasts.

It could worsen. This week came signs of a split between Shias and Kurds. If Kurds decide to go for independence, their long-time goal, Turkey, Syria and Iran will probably intervene. Shiite Iraqis will move closer to Iran. Saudi Arabia, Israel — who knows? In poli-sci jargon, the region would be deeply destabilized: another antiseptic term that conceals vast human, social, economic and environmental damage. Think of Lebanon, going on decades. I know it sounds apocalyptic, but this is the Mideast, birthplace of apocalypse.

It makes one re-evaluate that famous wimp, George Bush the First, when he declined to move on to Baghdad and depose Saddam Hussein, after liberating Kuwait in 1991. Could he have had something other than cowardice in his craw? Might he have actually known what he was doing?

rick_salutin_small_24_1_1_1_1_0

Rick Salutin

Rick Salutin is a Canadian novelist, playwright and critic. He is a strong advocate of left wing causes and writes a regular column in the Toronto Star.