Victim’s shoe at soccer field bombing, this week.

Warnings by top US generals of a growing threat of civil war in Iraq are confronting US policymakers with somber questions about the future of a costly three year old mission to stabilize the country.

Civil war would force the United States to choose between withdrawing its troops or take sides in what could become a wider regional conflict.

Senator John Warner, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, warned that if Iraq does descend into civil war the administration may have to seek a new mandate from the US Congress.

“If that were to come about, I think the American people would ask, ‘Well, which side are we going to fight on? Or do we fight both? And did we send our troops there to do that? We thought we sent them there to liberate the Iraqis, which we have done at a great sacrifice, 2,500-plus”…

“Unsettling though it may sound, the United States could end up with no alternative to pulling out of a country that had degenerated into chaos,” said Loren Thompson, director of the Lexington Institute, a Washington group that specializes in military analysis.

“It seems improbable but our role in Iraq is to build democracy so if the center doesn’t hold, there is nothing left to defend,” he said.

A withdrawal of US forces in the midst of a civil war would be “a huge defeat for American diplomacy, in fact possibly the greatest defeat ever,” he said.

“However, there is no point in sticking around to preside over a meltdown. If a country is going to divide along sectarian lines it would be very dubious strategy to try to prevent a natural process from unfolding,” he said.

Read the article. There are several more opinions — not a lot of choices.

The “choice” is a rhetorical question, of course.  How much choice have we had in the decision, so far?