With a new government in place, security concerns will dominate the Iraqi leaders’ agenda. Reforming the country’s decrepit police force will be paramount if Iraq is to end its cycle of violence.

It is unclear if classifying the conflict in Iraq as a civil war will have serious ramifications for U.S. military strategy there or, for that matter, U.S. domestic politics.

The death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq’s most wanted man, is an important event but one unlikely to affect the insurgency greatly.