Is Iraq in Civil War?

Is it a civil war, or isn’t it?
ASK THIS | July 28, 2006
There are objective characteristics that all modern civil wars share. Harvard public policy professor Monica Toft lists six criteria. Hint: Iraq meets all of them.

By Monica Duffy Toft
monica_toft@harvard.edu

There are six criteria for considering a conflict a civil war.

Q. Is the focus of the war control over which group governs the political unit?

Q. Are there at least two groups of organized combatants?

Q. Is the state one of the combatants?

Q. Are there at least 1,000 battle deaths per year on average?

Q. Is the ratio of total deaths at least 95 percent to 5 percent? In other words, has the stronger side suffered at least 5 percent of the casualties?

Q. Is the war occurring within the boundaries of an internationally recognized state or entity

The article has a very interesting (and very long) list of other civil wars from 1940 to 2005.