2 Jul 2014
The sudden incursion of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) deep into the heartland of Iraq has been the greatest test the nation has faced since the removal of Saddam Hussein in 2003 by US-led coalition forces. A fragile democratic experiment looks increasingly troubled, as the country’s political and security apparatus struggle to fight back against a hardened, well-trained movement supported by increasing numbers of Sunni tribal leaders in Iraq’s northern and western regions.
Whatever ISIS in Iraq may or may not be – a Ba’athist insurgency, a tribal uprising, a bona fidejihadist extremist movement, or some combination thereof – it is clearly Sunni. The group’s statements against the Shia population, although coloured by hyperbole, invoke emotional triggers through an insistence on the destruction of the Shia heartland in Karbala, 100 km southwest of Baghdad. The Shia response has been forceful and immediate. Buoyed by a call to arms by Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani on 13 June, thousands of young, mostly Shia men have signed up to join the Iraqi Army, while old sectarian militias such as the Jaysh Al-Mahdi – commanded since its emergence in 2003 by cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr – have reawakened.
Al-Sistani’s rallying cry in particular was a significant moment in the history of post-Saddam Iraq, and of Arab Shia politics in general. The reclusive Ayatollah outweighs any other force in the Shia world, including that of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Since the fall of Saddam, Sistani has acted as a force of moderation and tolerance in an increasingly divided region. As such, his decision to take a stand is an indication of both the intensity of the strain that now exists in the Arab world, and the existential fear among Shia with regard to their destruction at the hands of Sunni militants in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.
As if to reflect this sense of anxiety, Qasim Sulaimani, the once shadowy head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force, and since 2003 the much-famed regional problem-solver, was sent to Baghdad almost immediately after the fall of Iraq’s second-largest city Mosul to ISIS in order to help Maliki’s government formulate a response to the militant wave sweeping southward. Iran is heavily invested in this fight; its emotional connection to the holiest shrines in Shia Islam – located in the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala – and its desire to ensure security in its border regions mean that it will support the government indefinitely. But the Islamic Republic’s rush to prop up the government in Baghdad risks further polarising Iraqis in their responses to the insurgency.
Furthermore, this comes at a time when the region’s main Sunni power, Saudi Arabia, fears isolation and weakness in the face of an empowered Iran, bolstered by the legitimacy of political engagement encapsulated in ongoing talks with the West about its nuclear programme. The brazen insertion of Iran into the conflict in Iraq will thus inevitably raise severe concerns in Saudi Arabia. Yet, despite Riyadh’s anger, it may not have a dog in this fight. Supporting ISIS would be anathema to the House of Saud, given that there is little advantage in having a movement spearheaded by extremists – who question Saudi’s legitimacy to speak for Islam – gain at the expense of Iraq’s central government and its Iranian backer.
But to understand what is happening in Iraq it is necessary to go beyond an examination of ISIS, sectarianism and external Iranian influence to consider the domestic issues of exclusion and the lack of socioeconomic progress evident in many parts of the country. Should Baghdad successfully reinforce security across the country (with the aid of the 300 military trainers sent there by US President Obama, the Iranian Quds Force, the Kurdish Peshmerga defending Kurdistan Regional Government territories, and Shia militias), Maliki will need permanently to change the overly centralist influence that has so characterised his premiership if a stable and functional nation-state is to develop. Meanwhile, calls for the embattled prime minister to step down have been growing across the country and are becoming increasingly prominent in the West as well.
Certainly, Maliki has enemies, particularly among his own Shia co-religionists, many of whom would like nothing more than to see him fall ignominiously from power. Yet, should Iraq’s political classes display a rare moment of political maturity, a space might well open up to rebuild Baghdad’s image in the eyes of the country’s various constituent entities. If Baghdad can allow for a more inclusive system in which greater autonomy is afforded to majority Sunni areas, and concessions are made to the Kurdistan Regional Government on its right to export oil (which the Iraqi government rejects), it is possible to see a way ahead for Iraq that does not involve state collapse.
However, this is by no means a given and, as insecurity reigns across Iraq, the future remains unclear. While, ultimately, the only solution will be a political one, it is imperative that security first be re-established across the country. Moreover, it will likely be many months after the fighting has died down before the ramifications of the summer’s unfolding events can be fully understood. What is certain is that Iraq will not emerge from this crisis unscathed; the country is likely to be deeply scarred and its status as a federal democracy under severe threat.
Since the start of the conflict in Syria in the spring of 2011, it has been fashionable to talk about state break-up in the context of the stark division between Sunni and Shia that appears to be splitting the region apart, from Lebanon to Bahrain. Exaggeration and Schadenfreude can often colour such analyses, but there is no doubting the fact that the Middle East appears to be pulling apart at the seams, with ethnic groupings gravitating toward the magnetic poles of Tehran and Riyadh.
For those who cheer a new regional order, it may be worth taking a second to think about what could arise from the ‘birth pangs of a new Middle East’ famously spoken of by former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in relation to Israel’s 2006 aggression against Lebanon. Recent history shows that such optimism has proven unfounded, failing to take account of the ramifications of a new regional order.
Consider the scenario that is often touted as a future model for the region: an Alawite state along the coast of Syria bordering a Sunni state stretching from Damascus to Baghdad, flanked by a Kurdish nation to the north supported politically and even financially by Turkey, and a Shia state supported by Iran in the south.
The underlying assumption behind this new order is that forging states in the Middle East on the basis of more ethnically representative characteristics will enhance regional stability and reduce the likelihood of internecine war, and that Sunni, Shia and Kurd, accordingly, can live happily side-by-side, ruled by their own and enjoying an increased sense of inclusion and civic identity.
The states that would emerge out of a broader new regional order could not even rely on the institutional strength enjoyed by Israel – the country created as a Jewish state with an Arab minority which has seen endless conflict since its inception in 1947, but which nevertheless provides the only other model of functioning statehood in the Middle East. Governance in this part of the world is weak at best, with a dependence on hydrocarbons masking systemic economic inefficiencies, and bloated and corrupt governments that offer mediocre services to their people. Quite apart from the mass population transfers that would have to take place to ensure a ‘neat’ redistribution of the Middle East’s various populations, precisely how ethnic homogenisation would improve the situation is unclear. While a more ethnically representative government may defer social unrest for a short while, if services are not delivered, or if corruption continues to reign, sooner or later serious problems will re-emerge.
Additionally, the mass redistribution of state resources, hydrocarbons and, equally importantly, water to new states would likely lead to intensified resource competition in the coming years. It might be asked, for example, whether a Shia state could accept a Sunni state (with elements of ISIS and the Syrian jihadist organisation Jabhat Al-Nusra built into its security apparatus) controlling the upper portions of both the Tigris and the Euphrates without feeling the most extreme sense of insecurity. Ethnic homogeneity for a Shia state in southern Iraq would surely come at the most unacceptable of prices.
Meanwhile, the creation of ethnically representative states would also lead to a complete revamp of relationships in the broader region; external players such as Saudi Arabia and Iran would surely support those states which match their own sects, exploiting them for the benefit of their regional grudge matches. Nor could Saudi Arabia ever accept a fully Iranian-backed Shia state on its northeastern border currently with Iraq, bringing, as it would, Iran – and an unacceptably high risk – to Saudi Arabia’s doorstep.
Yet the ‘balkanisation’ of the Middle East is not necessarily a given. It does appear increasingly likely that the Kurds, backed by Turkey, will move closer to their dream of obtaining an independent state, given the collapse of the Iraqi Army’s northern divisions around Mosul and Kirkuk and the Kurdish assertion of de facto security control over their disputed territories. Yet the pathway for other nations to emerge is far less clear. What is certain is that a regional realignment along ‘natural’ ethnic lines will not lead to peace any time soon.
Perhaps a more sensible idea for Iraq would be the gradual distancing of its constituent parts, with each looking after its own security while maintaining federal agreements in relation to resource allocations. Perhaps good ‘fences’ – in the form of such agreements – could make for good neighbours, while avoiding the immediate division of the constituent parts into sovereign nation-states, which would throw up more questions than it would answer. As long as the international community is prepared to try to respond to the various issues likely to arise from any such distancing, and to expect to see a highly destabilised region as a result of these changes, it might prove, in the long term, to be the best of a very bad range of options.
Michael Stephens
Deputy Director, RUSI Qatar.
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