Daniel Byman and Kenneth Pollock of the Brookings Institution have authored a cheerfully titled report, THINGS FALL APART: CONTAINING THE SPILLOVER FROM AN IRAQI CIVIL WAR. In it they argue that America has no choice but to prepare to contain an all out civil war in war in Iraq. Unfortunately, their own assessment, based on a study of civil wars over the last 30 years, notes,
The historical record of states that attempted to minimize or contain spillover from all-out civil wars is poor. Nearly all of them failed to do so. Those that "succeeded" often paid such a high cost as to render their victories pyrrhic. In many cases, states failed so miserably to prevent spillover that they were eventually forced to mount massive invasions to attempt to end the civil war instead.
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