Actually, it's more like Chinese checkers.

The National Intelligence Estimate for Iraq released last week painted a pretty dismal picture of the situation. Calling it a civil war, the report said, was inadequate to described what appears to be complete chaos. Shias fighting Shias. Shias fighting Sunnis. Rampant criminality. Al-Qaida fighting everybody. Insurgents and militias seemingly out of control.

John McLaughlin, a former acting director of the CIA, told the New York Times: "Civil war is checkers. This is chess."

He's right, except one thing. It's like five people playing chess and moving the pieces randomly and throwing the board off the table every now and then.

Or maybe it's like Chutes and Ladders. No, Monopoly, played at gunpoint. No...oh, never mind...