let me get this straight...

The debate in the last couple of months has been whether or not Iraq is actually a civil war, right?

A civil war is a war between citizens of the same country; a war between opposing groups of citizens of the same country; the warring groups must be from the same country and fighting for control of the political center, control over a separatist state or to force a major change in policy.

Wikipedia also states that at least 1,000 people must have been killed in total....

As far as the last part it's way over 1,000 Iraqi's dead.

As for the major change in policy, the Sunni's want Iraq to be Sunni and the Shia want Iraq to be Shi'ite. The Kurds seem to want their little piece of the north but also some of the oil that is in the rest of the country.

Now, Sunni, Shia and Kurd are religous factions/sects of Islam and the three of them have a long (1000 year+) history of conflict over which of them is the true inheritor of the Prophet's word. So maybe this is a religious war.

By definition a religious war is a war justified by religious differences. It can be the legitimate forces of one state that has an established religion against those of another state with either a quite different religion or a different sect within the same religion, or, at the level below a state, it can be a faction motivated by religion attempting to spread its faith by violence either within the state or elsewhere.

I don't understand the real issue between Sunni & Shi'ite. It comes across as quite complex. They seem all to believe the same thing; it's just that they are fighting over the Prophet's, what, estate, legacy, history?

Maybe what's going on is really a religious civil war?

or... has the entire business really come down to one thing? oil?

just asking...