Are We There Yet?

Jake Tapper pens an article on ABC News, Expert on Iraq: 'We're In a Civil War'. Subtitled, "U.S. Officials Deny Violence Has Risen to That Level, but ABC News Analysts See a 'Serious Lack of Realism,'" this is one of the first articles I've seen that actually states that we have already started the "Civil War" phase of our Iraqi adventure. Most pieces have stopped short of that, preferring to say that Iraq is teetering on the edge of Civil War.

As Tapper noted:

As Pentagon generals offered optimistic assessments that the sectarian violence in Iraq had dissipated this weekend, other military experts told ABC News that Sunni and Shiite groups in Iraq already are engaged in a civil war, and that the Iraqi government and U.S. military had better accept that fact and adapt accordingly.

"We're in a civil war now; it's just that not everybody's joined in," said retired Army Maj. Gen. William L. Nash, a former military commander in Bosnia-Herzegovina. "The failure to understand that the civil war is already taking place, just not necessarily at the maximum level, means that our counter measures are inadequate and therefore dangerous to our long-term interest.

"It's our failure to understand reality that has caused us to be late throughout this experience of the last three years in Iraq," added Nash, who is an ABC News consultant.

I have been wondering what level/type of hostilities would be necessary before we finally declared the start of the "Civil War." What more could we need? Who would decide when we crossed the line into full Civil War? Blogger BlondeSense must have been similarly puzzled, since she asked the question, Is It or Isn't It? Her post includes the dictionary meaning of the term "Civil War":

Definition:
1. A war between factions or regions of the same country.
2. A state of hostility or conflict between elements within an organization.

I realize that the Bush Administration has long pretended that the fighting factions were foreign insurgents, not local factions, but at what point does the press give up that fiction and acknowledge the true state of affairs? Sounds like we may be there. It was a long ride.