RPCV Michael O'Hanlon writes: Iraq is one of the top five deadliest places on earth
"The simplest conclusion to reach is that Iraq, now one of the two or three most violent places on Earth, is in civil war but not yet all-out absolute civil war. Does it matter? Politically, here at home, I believe Americans care less about semantics and more about whether they sense we have a credible strategy for victory — or at least for achieving some measure of stability in Iraq.(Research from various scholars, including Duke University professor Peter Feaver who now works for President Bush, backs up this generalization about what most determines American public support for the nation's wars.) I think the answer is that clearly Americans do not believe we are winning. They do not believe we presently have a strategy that will change the trajectory in Iraq. In other words, we already knew we were losing, whether one called this a civil war or not. The important question is can we turn things around, not whether we can find some way to spin events in Iraq into a more positive picture than the facts warrant. But let's call a spade a spade: Right now we are part of a losing operation, and Iraq is in a civil war. What is more, American voters know it — meaning that 2007 will probably be make or break time for this country's willingness to continue the war effort."
Michael O'Hanlon, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute and a Visiting Lecturer at Princeton University, served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Congo Kinshasa.