Is it a religious war?

Dinesh D’Souza at the AOL blog argues that the battle in Iraq between Sunni and Shia is not a religious war, but rather the consequence of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni thugocracy. Without getting into the larger debate over D’Souza’s new book, I think his view on this narrow question is probably correct. It certainly is in accord with the conclusion reached by a friend of mine who served for a year in Iraq and, in the process of training Iraqi policemen, got to know individuals belonging to both branches of Islam.