As we approach the third year of our expedition into Iraq, our troops are caught in a nation that is descending into civil war.

The mess in which our nation is currently embroiled in Iraq has no end in sight. Both sides of an ancient religious divide threaten to unravel any chance of stability the West might have been able to bring, had that been the primary goal of U.S. forces to begin with.

Donald Rumsfeld, one of the principal cheerleaders for the new Iraqi government, told reporters last week that if civil war broke out, Iraqi security forces could handle it. But if our already overwhelmed troops are having trouble keeping order now, what kind of nightmare can we expect when sectarian violence becomes as commonplace as sand in the desert?

Whether or not the war was justified is moot. We are there now, and pulling out troops immediately is not only unrealistic, but also incredibly dangerous. Creating an army composed primarily of Shiite soldiers, who many Sunni Muslims regard as the enemy, will only intensify the religious divide. And the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops will only exacerbate the situation by widening an already noticeable power vacuum.

But by speaking in grandiose generalities we fail to address that the real conflict is not being waged in polls or Washington. The conflict on the ground in Iraq is real. When we read in the papers that a car bomb killed a dozen people, we fail to grasp that a dozen innocent people were literally ripped apart, their skin cooked and bodies torn beyond recognition. Pools of blood cover the ground like puddles after a rainstorm. Media coverage of the conflict really cannot do justice to the realities of war.

On March 13, four prominent journalists with experience covering the war in Iraq held a forum at UC Berkeley to discuss coverage of the conflict. John Burns, Baghdad bureau chief for the New York Times, joined three other prominent journalists in voicing one concern: in order to understand the war in Iraq we must understand the insurgency.

According to the panelists, the most reliable reporting coming from Iraq right now is from Iraqi reporters, and they are taking the brunt of the violence aimed at westerners. Iraqis who talk to westerners are often targeted for kidnappings and much worse. Of the 86 or so journalists killed in Iraq since the invasion began, nearly three-quarters have been Iraqi. American troop deaths are around 2,300 while Iraqi civilian deaths range from estimates between 32,000 - 38,000.

It is easy for us to sit in relative comfort and postulate on the different possibilities for Iraq, or to criticize the administration that got us into this mess, but the one sobering fact we must not forget is that this conflict is far from over. The implications of our little foray into Iraq threaten to destabilize a region that has already seen its share of turmoil.