HAS Iraq now fallen into civil war? In the past week, violence has left 238 dead, including 186 civilians. The victims were mainly Shia; most of the attackers are said to be Sunni.

This is not yet civil war. But the answer is still “no” mainly because of one man: Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has held back the Shias, 60 per cent of the population, from outright conflict with the Sunnis. Even he now sounds bleak about Iraq’s future.

It is a measure of the gloom in Iraq that reasons for hope are found in the religious establishment — such as al-Sistani — while the new Government is itself a reason for pessimism.

The tentativeness of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari — and his apparent reluctance to bind Sunnis more closely into Iraq’s future — is one of the most destabilising factors.

This has been a particularly black week for insurgent violence. Of course, it included two unnusually horrible events. If you were an optimist, you would say this made the toll unrepresentative.

On Saturday, the suicide bomber who managed to throw himself under a tanker truck in Musayyib killed at least 98 civilians and eight members of the Iraqi security forces. Last Wednesday, a suicide bomber, apparently targeting US troops, killed at least two dozen people, most of them children.

US generals are ridiculed for saying, as they often do, that insurgents cannot defeat their forces. However, they are right.

But the purpose of the assaults is, no doubt, to erode the morale of the security forces and the public. In that they are succeeding Incidences where the security forces have retaliated with torture, or killings, have deepened the problem. It would be easier to be optimistic about the impact of the violence if there were more sign of political progress. But Jaafari has compounded a poor start — taking three months to pick a cabinet — with other signs of drift.

It is not just security where that shows. Iraqis and Western diplomats report little sign that his team has got a grip on the ministries. Few officials, including the Prime Minister himself, appear able to give details of what they would like to do, even as a wish list, in security or public services.

Above all, the drift shows in drafting the Constitution. It is supposed to be ready within two months, to provide the basis for elections for a final, permanent Government at the end of the year. If Iraq is to avoid civil war, Jaafari has to find a form of words in this Constitution that makes Sunnis feel that their rights are protected and that they can live their lives in a Shia-led Iraq. There is little sign that Jaafari has yet mastered this task. It is clear, say close observers, that he is too mistrustful of former Baathists to allow them real power.

That does not mean he will shut out all Sunnis on principle. Opinion polls have consistently shown that Iraqis of all kinds have found him one of the fairest and most trustworthy public figures. But the mistrust between Sunni and Shia is now so deep that, it seems, when his Government faces a dilemma, it favours the Shia side.

Western diplomats, fingers pressed together in steeples, will not say outright that they don’t like Jaafari. But it is no secret they didn’t want him to become Prime Minister. His few definite actions — such as striking a “security pact” with Iran — have appalled them. However, their greatest worry is that he and his chosen colleagues — “people who have never run anything in their lives” — are out of their depth.

This isn’t yet civil war. But the security forces can only hold the violence at bay for a time until despair sets in. A fair and humane Constitution is the best route for stepping off the path to civil war. Iraq must hope that Jaafari discovers more speed in getting there than he has done so far.

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