Opinion (William Saffire): Choosing sides in verbal warfare over fighting in Iraq

When does a rebellion become a revolution? That's easy — when it wins. When does an uprising attain the level of an insurgency and qualify as an insurrection? That's harder to answer because the meanings of those synonyms flow into one another.

And when do all of the preceding amount to a civil war? That term usually denotes the struggle of an armed group of citizens within a nation seeking forcibly to seize control of the government from those in power. But that does not reflect the complexity of the war in Iraq today, which makes it hardest of all to define.

The linguistic dogmas of civil wars past are inadequate to the stormy present. In olden times — a generation or so ago — civil war required each major combatant to control some territory, have a functioning central authority and be recognized by some outside country — or some combination thereof. But guerrilla operations, suicide attacks on civilians, secret foreign support angrily denied, counterfeit uniforms and splintered insurgent forces supported by foreign terrorists make obsolete the past definitions of civil war — especially when the insurgents or terrorists are trying to overthrow a new government backed by a coalition of foreign troops.

Small wonder, then, for the current verbal warfare in the United States over what label we should attach to the hostilities in Iraq.

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