The media has observed that two of the three  “domestic” parties of the Iraq sitution, the Sunnis and the Shi’ites, seem incapable of acting in their own self-interest, even in the face of an increasingly mortal threat discussed in a Reuters article.

An obvious question presents: Is this incapability mainly a consequence of the fathomless depths of human stupidity, of a brinksmanship  primarily of domestic origin, or is this the ruthless use of proxies, with Iran as the primary suspect?

Iran’s presence is huge. But, tempering, to conclude that Iran is the cause of the failure of compromise to occur would be a form of abduction. The classic example of abduction is, “The grass is wet, so it must have rained.” Depending upon the circumstances, it could be a very good guess, or a very bad one.

Fencing a problem is one of the basics of the predictor’s toolkit. In this instance, the question takes a very general, nonspecific form. At the very least, the absence of an obvious open-source answer underscores the limitations of the news media.

From previous posts, you may surmise that I think I know the answer to this question. I have a bias, but predicting is best served by holding all the possibilities in mind at once. True facts are rare, distinguished mostly by omission in discussion.