Analysis: What Surrounds the Iraqi Tinderbox

If Iraq should descend into full-blown civil war, its neighbors could be drawn into a “regional conflagration,” as the new defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, put it to the Senate. Would that mean whole national armies squaring off against one another? Not likely soon, experts say. But after several more years of rising sectarian strife, centered in Iraq and spreading beyond its frontiers, a much wider war could ignite.

For now, the five largest nations bordering Iraq are keenly watching out for their interests: siding with Iraq’s Sunni or Shiite Muslims, controlling their own domestic rumblings, and seeking to increase their influence in the region.

So they prepare for limited, “asymmetric” battle — “deploying certain military elements for very specific purposes,” said Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It wouldn’t be country-on-country warfare.”

Their intervention in the Iraq war, Mr. Cordesman said, would escalate like this: Neighboring countries send advisers, small weapons and money to their allies. Then come military trainers and perhaps volunteer forces. Heavy weaponry follows. Any of which may be occurring in Iraq now, according to experts.

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