In Iraq the political rhetoric is becoming as threatening as the horrendous round of suicide bombing over the last week directed against civilians as well as troops and police. Some 98 people were killed and 130 injured in the worst incident outside a Shia mosque in Musayyib on Saturday.
The leading Shia cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has warned of a genocidal civil war if such violence continues, words that were echoed by the head of the principal party in the transitional national assembly which is drafting a constitution. The assembly has called on all Iraqis to observe a minute's silence today in memory of the Musayyib victims.
There is good reason to believe the escalating violence is driven by increasing resentment among the minority Sunni community about the constitutional negotiations, which have to be concluded next month, ahead of a referendum in October and parliamentary elections in December. Most Sunnis boycotted January's elections to the assembly, but last week 15 non-parliamentary Sunni experts joined the constitutional committee. Yesterday two of them and an aide were assassinated. Resistance to the US-led occupation forces and the interim Iraqi government comes substantially from the Sunni community. Historically they dominated Iraqi politics, even during the secular regime of Saddam Hussein, when they became the backbone of the civil service and the Baath Party.
The poorer Shia majority has taken the opportunity of his overthrow to assert their religious identity and political rights by participating in the transitional governmental process. Despite their political reservations about foreign occupation, they have taken advantage of the confessional structure of government imposed by it. At the constitutional talks they are calling for the introduction of Islamic law and support Kurdish plans for a federal Iraq. Sunnis suspect these plans will split the country and put them at a fundamental disadvantage. Their suspicions were reinforced with the weekend visit to Tehran by the head of the government, Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Events in Iraq are upsetting the balance between Shias and Sunnis throughout the Arab world and this visit has been making waves.
The escalating violence raises fundamental questions about the future of the occupation forces as well as the prospect of a civil war which would have a profound impact on surrounding states. Latest estimates suggest at least 25,000 people have died since 2003. This has been plainly articulated by the radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in an interview with Newsnight. He is a significant figure whose co-operation with the transitional government has helped it to survive. "The occupation in itself is a problem, Iraq not being independent is a problem, and the other problems stem from that - from sectarianism to civil war. The entire American presence causes this."
Unless constitutional change in Iraq is directly linked to an agreed timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops the danger of civil war will increase.