A year after the US invasion of Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN envoy at the time, told Iraqis that civil wars were not started by a "decision". Countries slid into them, he said, when people were reckless and thought more of themselves than of the benefit to their own country.

Mr Brahimi's warnings are becoming Iraq's dreadful reality. On the third anniversary of the start of the war that ousted Saddam Hussein's regime, two images of Iraq emerge. One is the growth in sectarian violence on the ground. The other is the squabbling leaders still looking to form a government three months after parliamentary elections.