Despite the violence and communal frictions, Katzman, the analyst at the Congressional Research Service, doesn't yet see Iraq tumbling into a sectarian war.
"Some would define this as some kind of civil war, but we don't yet have entire distinct camps across the country opposing each other," he said.
Iraq's influential Shiite leaders, particularly Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, are also playing a key role in tamping down resentments that could erupt into civil war.
One factor working against the effort by foreign extremists to foment civil war is the widespread belief among Iraqis that homegrown anti-US insurgents, either fervent nationalists opposed to foreign occupation or former Saddam loyalists angered by their fall from power, would not turn their weapons on fellow Iraqis.
So many Iraqis aim their anger over the attacks at foreign extremists and allied Iraqis who follow the puritanical Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam.
"Civilians are always going to the easiest targets, and the Islamic extremists coming into the country are using them to try torpedo Iraq's political process," said Ismael Zayer, editor-in-chief of the Iraqi newspaper Al-Sabah al-Gadeed.
"Civil war is the only scenario they have," Zayer said of the foreign terrorists. "These people have nothing else."
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