(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

BY CHRISTINA HARTMAN

Observers fear long-simmering rifts are close to a full-on boil in Iraq.

First -- there was this:

Euronews: “...the issuing of an arrest warrant for Iraq’s Sunni Vice President on terror charges.”

That -- only days before this:

Al Jazeera: “Iraqis wake up to a bloody morning in their capital. A series of explosions in what seemed to be well-coordinated attacks. It reminded many people that Iraq is neither safe nor secure.”

All against the backdrop of U.S. troop withdrawal from the country. CNN’s Arwa Damon and Tim Lister post their take, saying old rifts are starting to resurface.

“Nature abhors a vacuum but terrorism relishes one. And Iraq appears to be offering new space for al Qaeda and other militant groups, as political rivalries and sectarian animosities deepen.”

In this case, the vacuum, according to CNN, is the US troop pullout. A little background: elections that took place last year ended in something of a truce between Iraq’s Muslim divisions of Sunni and Shia. What resulted -- was a Shiite prime minister, a Kurdish president, and a Sunni vice president.

And now -- The Telegraph headlines, “Iraq heads towards seemingly inevitable sectarian conflict”
“The irony of the Iraq war was that the minority Sunnis, who had most to lose from the fall of the Saddam Hussein, were left with most to fear from the American departure and the prime political position left behind to the country's new Shia masters.”

Exacerbating things internally is that arrest warrant we mentioned earlier, issued to the Sunni vice president from Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. It’s fueling concerns from Sunnis that they’re under attack. The BBC’s diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus writes...

“Inevitably this crisis is interpreted in some quarters as an effort by the dominant Shia faction to settle scores with its Sunni rivals. Iran is seen by many analysts as operating behind the scenes to bolster the Shia position. Iran may well be an interested party but this is a genuinely Iraqi crisis fuelled by the diverging political ambitions of Iraqi leaders.”

On Thursday White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the Baghdad bombings and similar attacks will not derail Iraq’s continued progress.