The Path to Civil Sectarian War

Abstract: This study explains how the escalation of the Iraq War led to a parallel civil sectarian war between Sunni and Shia insurgents during the years 2003-2006. I used the method of process-tracing and the theory Greed and Grievances. With the theory and method I could conduct the process-tracing and explain how the two independent variables opportunity and objective grievances fueled and enabled the insurgency to grow and divide into sectarian lines. Throughout my process-trace I found two formative events, the disbandment of the Ba’ath party and the Iraqi army which started the Sunni insurgency and Al Qaeda Iraq’s killings of Shia Muslims which gave rise to Shia insurgents. I also found that the occupation, inability to reconstruct the Iraqi society and provide security by the Coalition helped to fuel the two insurgency lines as the conflict morphed into a parallel civilian sectarian war.