A year after the US invasion of Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN envoy at the time, told Iraqis that civil wars were not started by a "decision". Countries slid into them, he said, when people were reckless and thought more of themselves than of the benefit to their own country.
Mr Brahimi's warnings are becoming Iraq's dreadful reality. On the third anniversary of the start of the war that ousted Saddam Hussein's regime, two images of Iraq emerge. One is the growth in sectarian violence on the ground. The other is the squabbling leaders still looking to form a government three months after parliamentary elections.
Whether Iraq is considered already in civil war or on the brink of it, what seems increasingly clear is that the political process on which the US had pinned hopes of stability has proved too weak and divisive to save the country from what will probably be years of violence and upheaval.
Though low-level sectarian attacks have been waged for a long time, the country's bleak prospects became more starkly apparent in the aftermath of the February 22 bombing of the Golden Mosque, the Shia shrine in the northern town of Samarra.
The first wave of Shia reprisals included the burning of Sunni mosques and killings by mobs. A week later, car bombs killed 50 people in Sadr city, the Shia stronghold of Baghdad controlled by militia loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, the young radical cleric.
Within days, more than 100 bodies were found in Baghdad, some tortured to death, others hanging from telegraph posts. Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister, estimates that at least 50 people are killed in Iraq every day.
Alarmingly, the bloodshed of recent weeks exposed the waning power of Shia religious and political leaders to rein in the vigilantes. Even Mr Sadr's calls for restraint were ignored. Hadi al-Amery, the head of the Badr organisation, an arm of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the main Shia parties, told Reuters news agency that small armed groups were being formed in villages and towns to protect the population. "We're telling the people to ensure their own security if the government is incompetent."
More militancy among the Shia majority plays into the hands of the Sunni insurgents and could help them draw broader support from the Sunni Arab community. Peter Harling, who has studied Iraq's insurgents for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, says there are recent changes in the discourse of the groups (not only the al-Qaeda-type extremists whose strategy has always been to provoke civil war).
The enemy, which used to be described as the occupying forces, is now increasingly seen as "the Shia sectarian government backed by Iran" waging war against the Sunni.
As the violence intensifies, the two elements that could help contain the crisis - effective government and strong security forces - are still lacking.
US officials report encouraging progress in the readiness of the Iraqi army. But the Iraqi police, run by the interior ministry that has been controlled by a Shia party, has proved more of a problem than a solution. Accused of human rights abuses, including torture and death of detainees, policemen also allowed Shia militiamen through checkpoints to areas where reprisals were reported after the Samarra bombing.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Iraq, who has warned that the country was "really vulnerable" to civil war, insists that a gov-ernment should include a non-sectarian interior minister. US commanders also have been recruiting more Sunni Arabs to the police force.
But while the needs of a united, non-sectarian government have become greater, the political infighting has worsened, squandering the gains made in the December elections, when a high number of Sunni Arabs voted for the first time.
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, leader of the Daawa Islamist Shia party, has insisted on staying on as prime minister, after winning an internal battle within the Shia alliance that secured the largest number of seats in the elections. But the minority Kurds, the Sunni Arabs and secular parties are opposing his candidacy and argue that the government he led last year proved sectarian and unproductive. The battle for the top post has also exposed widening divisions within the Shia coalition, with the Daawa party, backed by Mr Sadr's movement, now pitted against Sciri.
Mr Khalilzad has been busy mediating among the various political factions in the hope of still producing an inclusive government. But his efforts could be undermined by the US, which has waged what it claims was a massive military operation around Samarra last week, drawing criticism from Sunni politicians involved in talks over the government.
With the risk of the Sunni-Shia conflict drawing in more directly the regional powers, Mr Khalilzad is set to start discussions with Iran, which has backed Shia parties, including Sciri. The US, meanwhile, is also engaging Sunni Arab governments in talks over the future of Iraq.
Toby Dodge, a London-based Iraq expert, argues that the Iraq conflict may not lead to the break-up of the country or to a broader regional conflict.
"But Iraq's politicians are indulging in petty theatrics and short-term advantages while the country is ripping itself to pieces," he says. "What this leads to is something that could be worse than a civil war, it could be violent anarchy, with islands of comparative stability scattered across the country in a sea of violence."
