While Iraq is Disintegrating … What’s Next?

[SocalDinar]

U.S. sanctions, subsequently the invasion of Iraq, the hard power struggle among the ethnic and sectarian elites after the U.S. the occupation, and lastly the growing involvement of regional powers in obtaining economic and geopolitical supremacy seem to have already torn apart the country. Most of the time, it may be difficult for readers living in other regions of the world to understand what’s going on in Middle East. That’s quite normal, since there are so many actors and the interests they follow may not be the same over the middle run. The geopolitics of Iraq has definitely changed after U.S. occupation in 2003. Besides small religious and ethnic minorities (such as Turkomen, Christian peoples like Assyrians, Armenians and others) there are mainly three important populations represented by three different set of political parties or forces. Of course, this is not a very democratic picture: Political attitudes and organizations are divided along ethnic and sectarian lines. These ethnic and sectarian divisions are partly a historical legacy, partly deepened and exploited by imperialist-colonialist polices of big powers and partly still exploited by the ruling elites of these ethnic and religious populations and the regional powers supporting them. First, there are Kurds in the north. After the U.S. occupation, they have built a largely autonomous region called “Iraqi Kurdistan”. But keep in mind that Kurdish people are divided between four nation states (Iran, Turkey, Iraq and Syria) and the majority live in Turkey. Then come the Sunnite Arabs who are governed mostly by tribal chiefs, Sunnite religious leaders and high-ranking members of the old Baathist regime overthrown by US occupation. Sunnite Arabs live in the central region, which includes Baghdad, Tikrit, Salahuddin, Mosul (the latter mixed with Iraqi Kurds). During old regime, Sunnite Arabs were overwhelmingly supporting Baathist Party of Saddam Hussein and they were largely taking advantages of the benefits provided by his administration. Of course one should be attentive when such terms as “Sunnite Arabs” are used. We mean naturally not the whole Sunnite Arab population, but their elites. However, the general living standards of the Sunnite Arabs in general were far better before the occupation. After U.S. occupation the Shiite elites representing the largest Muslim sect in Iraq (about 60 per cent of the total population) became predominant in determining domestic and foreign policies especially after the general elections held in late 2005. The Shiites live mainly in the southern Iraq (more precisely beginning from the south of Baghdad) in the Karbala, Al-Kut, Al-Najaf and Al-Basra provinces. Since 2006 we have Nouri al-Maliki as the “powerful” Prime Minister (PM) and also the leader of Shiite al-Dawa Party. He has two big political rivals struggling for the representation of the Shiite population in Iraq: Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) and Moqtada Al-Sadr having a popular support. The Reasons Behind the Emergence of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) as a Seemingly Powerful Actor As I tried to say above, we should keep in mind the following points in order to understand the power play in Iraq after the US occupation: The elites of all the three main ethnic and sectarian groups (the Kurds and the Sunnite and the Shiite Muslims) are striving to enlarge their domain of dominance, their economic and military advantages. This is quite normal since there aren’t any democratic participation channels which the ordinary peoples can use and thereby influence policy decisions. These elites composed of tribal leaders, war lords, sect leaders and others are plundering natural resources and the wealth of Iraq by involving themselves in oil smuggling, car trade, and all sorts of corrupted businesses via a patronage networks and by providing military protection for these kinds of activities. ISIS calls itself as a “radical Islamic organization,” but in reality they have nothing do to with neither “radicalism” nor with “Islam” as a religion. They have never fought against the forces of Syrian regime; they committed every kind of brutal torture, cut people’s heads, hands, and raped even very adult woman in regions and villages that they captured. So how could this notorious “jihadist” group succeed in capturing the Ninova province and the second largest city of Iraq, Mosul, on 10th July? Ninova province is inhabited overwhelmingly by Sunnite Arabs. Many commentators agree that what’s behind this “success” of ISIS is indeed a “Sunnite Arab uprising” and the leaders of this uprising are Sunnite tribe chiefs, Baathist ex-military officers as well as some Sunnite high clerics. This is quite understandable when we think of how Sunnite Arab population and its elites have been excluded from the governance of Iraq –therefore denied access to material advantages– since the occupation. Indeed it has always been Sunnite Arab elites who have governed the country since its foundation. The Kurds in north and Shiites in south were always the usual victims, oppressed and sometimes massacred brutally. Probably the Sunnite Arab elite seek to regain some portion of the power they have lost with the U.S. occupation and they are not willing to share in any way power over Sunnite dominated territory with the other two large communities. Moreover, parts of the Sunnite Arab region host some of the richest oil fields of Iraq such as the city of Mosul, which was recently captured by ISIS. Therefore we should focus on this power play between various ethnic and sectarian elites instead of ISIS because many serious commentators believe that without the strong backing of Sunnite tribal chiefs and Baathist nationalists, ISIS could be easily defeated in a short time. And we should also discuss, of course, the regional powers, which strongly support one or the other ethnic and/or sectarian communities. Indeed all the regional and global powers are actively participating in this power play: Turkey along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar supports the Sunnite block (involving the Kurdistan Regional Government [KRG] under the leadership of M. Barzani, and the Sunnite Arab elite has deep roots in the central part of the country). On the other hand, Iran and now a considerably weakened Syrian government provide active support to the Shiite block. If these regional powers, especially Turkey and Saudi Arabia could succeed in empowering their allies (including ISIS) sufficiently, an Iraq divided into three parts (an Iraqi Kurdistan, the Sunnite Arab region in the center and the south dominated by Shiites) will be to their advantage. Indeed almost everybody interested in the developments in Iraq agree that sooner or later Iraq (as well as Syria, probably) will be divided into three sub-states on the basis of ethnic and sectarian “territories”. The Disintegrating Forces in Iraq, their Regional Allies and the U.S. Let’s review briefly the goals of these regional powers as well as the United States. After the occupation, U.S. could not establish a client regime in Iraq, which was its main target in order to secure the flow of oil from Iraq under its control. Instead, the Shiites resisted and then took control of the central government. Nouri al-Maliki’s government developed strong relations with Iran since 2006, the main Shiite regional power. So it turned out that while U.S. aimed to weaken the regional position of Iran in Middle East by occupying Iraq, it was Iran that greatly benefited from the post-invasion developments in Iraq. Iran increased its regional hegemony by the active participation of the Shiites elite in the administration of Iraq. Consequently Iran had always advocated the unity of Iraq as a nation state. The reason was obvious: with Shiite parties maintaining the central power, it could control not only the Shiite dominated south but also Iraq as a whole. This means that Iran will defend the integrity of Iraq as long as the Iraqi Shiite elites are the real decision making power in the country. And interestingly enough, the U.S. government under President Obama was collaborating with Iran in order to maintain the unity of Iraq. Now, with the Sunnite uprising in the predominantly Sunnite region (for which ISIS is merely a combat force on display), with Sunnite grievances that grew stronger and stronger over the past decade because of their exclusion from the central power and especially with the strong backing of the regional powers (Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar), it will be more difficult to maintain the integrity of Iraq under the exclusive rule of Shiite elites. Whether the Shiite elites could be convinced to share power with the Sunnites, God knows, but it doesn’t seem very likely. And what can the U.S. do amidst such a chaotic situation? As a declining global power with an economy still in recession, the United States can only hope to reshape Iraq as a truly federal (or should we say “confederate”?) state by putting pressure on the rulers of the main ethnic and sectarian divisions (and by cooperating with Iran of course). In that case Iraq will be consisting of three federal regions with strong autonomies vis-à-vis the central power. Will that option work, we will see. But it seems to me that we are approaching to the end of the status quo in the Middle East created by Britain and France right after the Word War I. Having been created on the old territories of the Ottoman Empire, the political entities that we now call “Iraq” and “Syria” came to be regarded as “nation-states.” However, we should not forget that these two states could only survive as “nation-states” under the dictatorships of the Baathist parties. Especially the Baathist party in Iraq could maintain the integrity of the country by oppressing the Kurdish and Shiite populations very severely on behalf of a Sunnite minority. U.S. sanctions, subsequently the invasion of Iraq, the hard power struggle among the ethnic and sectarian elites after the U.S. the occupation, and lastly the growing involvement of regional powers in obtaining economic and geopolitical supremacy seem to have already torn apart the country. But even if Iraq to disintegrates in the middle term, there will remain a big, unresolved and indeed deeply buried problem from when Britain and France designed the Middle East in early 20th century: A people of forty million is being deprived of a state of their own: the Kurds. How will international and regional powers handle the Kurdish question this time? Will they point to an independent Iraqi Kurdistan – under another tribal leadership and transforming increasingly into a client state of Turkey – and tell the Kurdish people living in four countries “here is your country, be content and happy with it”?

 

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/While-Iraq-is-Disintegrating--Whats-Next-20140722-0023.html

Edited July 9, 2015 by SocalDinar