Here’s Why Sunni-Shia Split Might Make A United Iraq A Lost Cause -- Inquisitr
Is the United States “losing” Iraq? That’s likely the wrong question. What we should be asking, given continued tensions between Sunni and Shiite factions, is whether there is an “Iraq” to save at all.
“We are seeing the disintegration of the state of Iraq into three nations; the Shi’ites in the south and east, the Kurds in the north and a Sunni Caliphate under the control of ISIL from western Iraq to Syria,” Rick Brennan, a political scientist with the RAND Corporation, told Voice of America recently.
When American forces were just beginning to reckon with the daunting task of rebuilding the country after Saddam, it was apparent that long-held tensions between the three main groups (Sunni, Shia, Kurd) would be a crucial obstacle. Years of oppressive rule by the minority Sunnis under Saddam, which was largely a secular regime, made the majority Shiites resentful, adding to the conflict.
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My Comment: Not everyone is thinking that Iraq is a lost cause .... Diplomacy Can Still Save Iraq -- Vali R. Nasr, NYT
As to what is my take .... this is a disaster that is unfolding in real time before the entire world .... and the world knows it.
8 comments:
1. To paraphrase Bismarck: The Iraqi civil war, and the religious war between Sunni and Shia underlying it, will be decided by blood and iron, not diplomacy or parliamentary resolutions. Whether Iraq exists as a unified state is a secondary matter.
2. All the players will calculate their best interests in the war now underway. Whether Iraq continues to exist will be a result of those calculations, not the cause of them. In other words, Iraq will remain a unified state only if the players calculate that having a unified state helps them in the war. Western press reports (and Kerry's diplomacy) seem to assume that Iraqi unity is an end in itself for the players. I disagree.
3. The Iraqi Parliament's ability to elect a new speaker, president, and prime minster will be the result of the players' calculations that their respective best interests in the war are to keep Iraq nominally united.
4. Iran is the principal player. Iran seems to have 3 goals:
a. To dominate at least the Shiite portion of Iraq, and its oil.
b. To wage war against the Caliphate.
c. To minimize Western (and especially American) influence in the territory now called Iraq, or at least in the Shiite part of it.
5. Maliki is Iran's man in Baghdad. He has shown that he will not defy Iran, i.e. in Maliki, Iran knows that it can veto major Iraqi decisions. Although Iran may have other people they would accept as Prime Minster, for now Iran seems to prefer Maliki to the benefit of allowing the Iraqi Government to function. In other words, for now Iran prefers Maliki to a nominally unified Iraq. As a practical matter, Maliki controls only the Shiite portion of Iraq, which will remain true whether or not Iraq remains nominally unified.
6. It is very difficult to see much role for the United States in Iraq's political situation. One of the very few things all the players (except the Kurds) share is a dislike of the West, and of the United States specifically. We should not put our soldiers in danger, as the leaked Pentagon report below notes.
My only beef with your comments Publius is that you do not do enough of them.
:)
Thank you for your feedback.
I agree with you both:) Good with some feedback and analysis here in the comments. I do some very simple "conclusions" somtimes in the comment field if i can call them that but mostly i ask questions and somptime tip of news if i find anything important, but thats very "rare" if i formulated this right.
Questions are also good Rhaegar. It makes me think .... and it forces me to write .... which is a good thing.
Thanks for your opinion and your answers to my questions they are very good written. :)
a. To dominate at least the Shiite portion of Iraq, and its oil.
b. To wage war against the Caliphate.
c. To minimize Western (and especially American) influence in the territory now called Iraq, or at least in the Shiite part of it.
Iran vs ISIS
a) As ISIS moves toward Basra they would have less and less fifth column support. Shia resistance should increase dramatically and ISIS would have an even longer exposed eastern flank to Iran. Unless ISIS is certain they can take all of Shia territory including Basra, this would be a poor move.
b) Can ISIS face Iran in the open field of battle and win, fight to a draw or more importantly survive as it is now constituted? This depends on ISIS's near and mid term goals not the "on to Spain" etc. First can their alliance with the Sunni tribes and ex-Baathists hold up to more than ad hoc arraingment that they now have. Then do they turn south and east against Shia, west against apostates and Israel, or south and and west to Saudi Arabian oil and Medina and Mecca.
c) Iran knows that the West is now gone. The advisers are a joke and they know it. Only the Israeli's can pose very serious problems. Does Iran move now to crush ISIS while we're gone and Israel is busy or do they wait and let ISIS burn itself out with internal warfare and the pursuance of foolish goals? They can't wait forever or they may lose Assad and/or Lebanon.
Kurds finally gonna get the freedom they deserve
The Caliphate is going through a period of consolidation, and I expect the current borders, with the occasional give-and-take, will remain essentially the same for some time, particularly since the Caliphate is pushing up against territory which is increasingly Shia.
A push against Jordan is still possible but unlikely at the moment, and would be an off-shoot of the campaign, not a part of it.
The Caliphate has to contend with the fact that all its Sunni allies in Iraq are united with it to the extent that they are against Maliki, not because they are in favor of the IS. Ibrahim (or al-Bagdadi) will have to contend with the internecine squabbling to keep what he has of his caliphate together, and that will likely be his focus.
The Kurds have a saying that God loves everyone except the Kurds. That's no less true than now, even though the Kurds are in their best position in decades in respect to some sort of independence. The Iraqi government has essentially abandoned them, busy trying to stay viable, but the government still opposes any sort of independence on their part, and Mailiki will reflect the Iranian attitude against them as well. We've already seen the Sunnis with the Caliphate square off against them, and the Turks, nominally still allies with the US despite Erdogan, have a long history of problems with the Kurds, so any form of Kurdistan, which wants to be allied the US, is still very much isolated.
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