With all of the other subjects that I have been trying to get to on this blog (completing what will probably be quite a long post of reflections on Detroit and, not incidentally, on casino gaming; conveying some thoughts on the free-trade agreement signed between the EU, Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia; and my hopes to return at some point to psychoanalytic questions on love, sex, hook-ups, marriage, etc.) and the need to complete my critique of the "pure" Neoclassical theory of the firm on my economic theory blog (www.egsoinexile.blogspot.com), I just haven't gotten around to expressing any thoughts on the situation in Iraq. I want to stop, momentarily, to leave a few short reflections concerning the nature of the present crisis/civil war, its relationship to both the civil war in Syria and to the Shi'a Islamic revolution of Iran, its context within the broader religious struggle between Sunni and Shi'a Islam, and the reasoning and expectations of success for any American intervention with strictly limited objectives of restoring political stability and stabilizing the effects of Iraqi conflict on global petroleum markets.
1. Iraq is not a nation - it is an arbitrary colonial-era construct whose future relies on the capacity of individual, culturally-defined groups of stakeholders to realize some benefit by working together within a common government.
This conclusion has to be the starting point for any subsequent reflections on the problems facing the geographic space occupying what was once Mesopotamia and a wide expanse of desert on the southern/western flank of the Euphrates River and on the northern/eastern flank of the Tigris River to the Iranian frontier. As with many other topics on which I have commented in this blog, I want to emphasize my relative lack of knowledge on this subject compared to individuals who have spent the balance of their lives studying the intricacies of Iraqi history. It is my understanding that the political entity within this geographic space was, jointly, a formal political product of the Sykes-Picot agreement, negotiated in 1916 by the French, British, and Tsarist Russian governments concerning the partition of territories governed by the Ottoman caliphate among the allied colonial powers, and of the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920, intended as an imposition of the peace against the Ottoman caliphate, including its political dismemberment by Britain, France, and Greece. Iraq's present political-jurisdictional boundaries were apparently drawn by the Treaty of Sèvres. These boundaries sutured culturally and religiously diverse groups, including Arab Muslims embracing both Shi'a and Sunni practices of Islam, Kurdish Muslims, and a tiny minority of Christian Assyrians that has virtually disintegrated at the present time.
It is my contention here that the conglomeration of these ethnically diverse groups can only be labeled a nation to the extent that each has embodied a generalized sense of commitment to the constitutional process through which the state defined itself as the legitimate embodiment of the political aspirations of a unified sovereign polity. That is to say, we could characterize the Iraqis as a nation if the populations contained by its political-jurisdictional boundaries jointly consented to the establishment of the state by which each individual group could claim a place within the collective political lineage of the nation through which the diverse multitude had, politically/constitutionally, become one. To my knowledge, this liberal-democratic/constitutionalist processual ideal cannot describe the manner in which Britain, as the colonial overlord of the geographic space and exploitative caretaker of Iraqi petroleum, foisted together masses of dissimilar groups into a common jurisdictional entity. Critically, prior to British administration, the same groups were unified under the Ottoman caliphate and, since the initial revolt of Sunnis and Shi'a against British direct rule in the early 1920s, these groups have had some ninety years to forge a sense of nationhood, characterized by a collective, secular political culture opening a space for the identification of shared interests and a shared memory of the evolving course of the country's political, economic, and cultural development. It could have been the case that the awkward conglomeration of ethnic and religious groups residing in the geography defined by the Treaty of Sèvres could have looked at each other more and more like an actual nation, defined by a shared political constitution and a sense that, for all of their cultural differences, each was made stronger by their diversities in relation to their countrymen.
But this isn't what happened, in large part, I would argue, because such a process would have required some semblance of a culturally inclusive democratic/pluralist process. Such a process might have operated on some level distinct from open mass political participation. For example, the rise of the secular, socialist Ba'athist movement in the 1950s might have pulled in Sunni, Shi'a, and Kurdish subsets to forge a conception of national identity transcending individual group belonging, even insofar as democratic involvement by each group was strictly limited within the larger structure of a system that could otherwise be characterized as an oligarchy. Given my commitments to the democratic process, I want to be extremely careful about how I am characterizing the Ba'athist movement in relation to democracy. My meaning more closely approaches the concept of pluralism, as inclusion of multiple distinct groups within political processes in which the shared result reflects participation by all groups in defense of their individual interests, by implicit representation rather than by mass democratic choice. In theory, Ba'athism, espousing secular, pan-Arab nationalism, unity, and a unique, Arab road to socialism, could have been a basis for the unification of Sunni and Shi'a Iraqi Arabs into a common nation. In practice, Iraqi Ba'athism appears to have prioritized Sunni groups. The two principal leaders of Iraqi Ba'athism, Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Saddam Hussein, both emerged from the northern Sunni province of Ninawa (both were from the city of Tikrit and were apparently relatives). Moreover, the Kurds remain a continuous outlier to the political process, even as Arab groups espouse ideologies that hold the promise of Arab national (and transnational, pan-Arab) unity. The degree to which the Iraqi Ba'athists, from the 1960s forward, promoted disunity in practice among Arab Iraqis is highly questionable, in the same way that the extent to which the Syrian Ba'athists under the Assad regime intentionally prioritized Alawites to the detriment of Sunnis is questionable. In important ways, the rise of revolutionary Shi'ism in Iran in 1979 turned the tables on Iraqi Ba'athism, making the Iraqi Shi'a into potential enemies threatening the internal order nurtured by secular (or, at least, non-sectarian Muslim) pan-Arab nationalist ideology. Hence, the Iraqi invasion of Iran in an effort to arrest the Shi'ite revolution before it could sever the tender threads of Arab Iraqi national unity.
The feeble idea of an Iraqi nation did not survive the start of the Iran-Iraq war. As much as countless foreign policy analysts have made the valid point that the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 caused a long term destabilization of Iraq and of the larger Middle East region whose effects are being borne in the current crisis, we also have to recognize that, at least since the Ba'athist Saddam Hussein declared himself the mortal enemy of the Iranian Shi'a revolution, the stabilization of Iraq relied on unvarnished sectarian policies, prioritizing the Sunni Arab minority and periodically engaging in brutal repression of the Arab Iraqi Shi'a majority and the Kurdish minority. With this in mind, 1979 appears to have been the critical moment of the rupture in Arab Iraqi nationhood. Acknowledging the fundamental flaws in Nouri al-Maliki's blatantly sectarian government, excluding Sunnis and Kurds from a meaningful role within the government and actively exercising repression by security forces against Sunnis, especially in Anbar and Ninawa provinces, prior to the rise of ISIS/ISIL, it is further necessary to acknowledge that a longer history weighs heavily against the possibilities for an all-encompassing pluralism among the various ethnic and sectarian groups of Iraq. Calls for Maliki's resignation, especially by Grand Ayatolla Ali al-Sistani, and for the formation of a new government with greater Sunni and Kurdish involvement/investment, thus, touch on the larger structure of the sectarian problem in Iraq, but they do not address the very real preconditions that allowed Maliki to come to power and develop a set of policy priorities that would so strongly favor the Shi'a majority at the expense of Sunnis. In this respect, notwithstanding the pressure exerted by Grand Ayatolla al-Sistani as a voice counseling moderation, inclusion of marginalized groups, and fidelity to the project of a unified Iraq in defense of the peace and the protection of the holiest Shi'a shrines (see Alexander Dziadosz and Raheem Salman, "After years off-stage, Iraq's Sistani takes charge," on Reuters (29 June 2014), at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/29/us-iraq-security-clerics-insight-idUSKBN0F30KX20140629), it would seem that the momentum of Sunni v. Shi'a conflict in Iraq continues to favor a zero-sum resolution by means of armed violence.
It seems that Kurdistan will continue to proceed in the direction of greater and greater regional autonomy relative to Baghdad and that it will continue to emerge as the most transparent, pluralistic, secular democratic regime within the geographic space characterized as Iraq. Outside of this potential bright spot, that needs to be aggressively supported by the West through financial assistance, private capital investment, and, if necessary military aid, the remainder of Iraq appears headed for a brutal split between Shi'a and Sunni, waged by the Iraqi "Army" and the Shi'a Mahdi Army's "Peace Brigades," on the one hand, and by ISIS/ISIL, on the other. In this context, the concept of Iraq is more a hindrance than a blessing, insofar as Sunnis and Shi'a who continue to believe, reflexively, in a unified nation and in their respective birthrights to be masters of that nation will shed enormous volumes of blood to impose their will over their opponents. If it is a fair representative statement on the intractable character of differences between Iraqi ethnic groups, Sunni and Kurdish parliament members have walked out of meetings intended to establish a new government after elections last April because the majority Shi'a National Alliance have failed to advance a replacement as prime minister for Maliki (see Rasheem Salman and Oliver Holmes, "Sunnis, Kurds abandon Iraqi Parliament after no replacement for Maliki named," on Reuters (1 July 2014), at: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/01/us-iraq-security-idUSKBN0F630G20140701). Peace would be better served by a concession, on all sides, that Iraq does not really exist and that the long term interests of all sides would be satisfied in formal separation.
2. A Victory for ISIS/ISIL in Anbar and Ninawa Provinces and in eastern Syria would be a disaster for the populations of these regions, for the Middle East, and for the world as a whole.
As with many other topics on this blog, I will confess some degree of ignorance on the backstory behind the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)/Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) (I cannot even tell what the appropriate name and acronym is for this group). They have, apparently re-christened themselves simply the Islamic State in the last two days, declaring their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, caliph, summoning a connection to a line Muslim politico-spiritual leadership extending back to the foundations of Islam and last associated with the Ottoman caliphate. The grandiose heights now occupied by the group, which currently controls a broad swath of land encompassing much of Anbar and Ninawa provinces in Iraq (including Mosul) and territory extending on the upper Eurphrates valley in Syria approaching Aleppo, apparently constituted itself among leftover partisans of Al Qaeda in Iraq after the U.S. supported Sunni awakening of tribal groups that largely destroyed Al Qaeda's presence in Iraq. The group's rise is a testament to the fact that history deplores a vacuum. The spillover the Arab Spring to Syria, destabilizing the hold of the Assad regime in Syrian northeast/Euphrates valley, enabled Sunni insurgents from Anbar province, tested in combat with U.S. forces in places like Falluja, to seize and hold ground left behind by Syrian security forces, as Assad struggled to hold on to the Damascus suburbs and his logistical lines to the Alawite enclaves on the northern Mediterranean coast. The group's return to Iraq, moreover, and its substantial success at attracting even former Ba'athists into an anti-government coalition attests to the complete failure of the Maliki government in responding to the demands of Sunnis in the north and west for greater inclusion in the determination of state policies and, certainly, for more government employment and a larger share of the benefits from international petroleum trade.
In this respect, certain points need to be acknowledged in considering the rise of ISIS/ISIL in northern and western Iraq and in northern and eastern Syria. First, the predominantly Arab Sunni populations in these regions are by no means necessarily predisposed to the brand of radical Salafism supported by ISIS/ISIL. If, especially in rural areas, these populations might be expected to practice a relatively conservative brand of Sunni Islam, the turn toward Salafism within ISIS/ISIL, other present or former Al Qaeda affiliate organizations, and more or less peaceful organizations like the Muslim Brotherhoods, reflects, to a substantial degree, the interaction/reaction of traditional modes of Sunni Islam with secular/modernist/liberal-and/or-socialist, Western ideologies, a pattern evident in urbanized social formations in the Islamic world. Emphatically, in Syria, such ideologies reflect direct confrontation with the relatively secular nature of the Assad regime and its liberal influence on Islamic practices in urban areas of the country, against which the Salafists express a categorical rejection of Western influences, corrupting the purity of Islamic religious practices.
In the Iraqi context, however, Salafism finds itself in direct confrontation with an entirely distinct Muslim other, the Shi'a revolution and its lingering impact on Iraqi Shi'a, including the lingering effects of Ba'athist suppression of the possibilities for Shi'ite political transformation. The very distinct historical roots, alluding to distinct origins at particular moments in the foundations of Islam, manifest in Sunni Salafism and in the Iranian brand of Shi'a revolution (revolutionary guardianship of Islamic jurists), make each militant approach mutually incompatible. Pointedly, ISIS/ISIL regards Shi'a, Iraqi or otherwise, as apostates, worthy of execution for their false beliefs. As such, the militant religious imperatives of ISIS/ISIL combined with the fundamentally historical/contextual political and economic grievances of Sunni population, particular those of ex-Ba'athists, to shape the development of the current uprising against the Maliki government, with its anchoring in the partisan privileging of Shi'a over Sunnis and Kurds and its tacit acquiescence in the revolutionary political Shi'ism of such figures as Muqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi movement.
Considered in this manner, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is doing something uniquely similar in spirit to the revolutionary seizure of initiative in the Iranian revolution by Ayatolla Ruhollah Khomeini - he is hijacking the political and economic discontents of a repressed, but not otherwise religiously militant, population in order to advance his own religious objective, in this case restoration of the Muslim caliphate and in a rigorously and brutally repressive Sunni Salafist form. In this regard, we need to stop and think for a moment about the consequences of what ISIS/ISIL has so far achieved and what the organization may be able to achieve if it is allowed to establish state institutions and some measure of political legitimacy (a very big if).
A crucial component in this if concerns the capacity of ISIS/ISIL to develop sources of wealth/economic development for local populations in order to both solidify its legitimacy with the populations under its domination and to prosecute its larger objectives relative to struggle against the Shi'a Iraqi regime in Baghdad (both defense of gains and expansion), and this component most critically involves access to petroleum resources and the means to convert such access into revenues and foreign exchange. If it was able to access either southern oil production resources or, more likely, fields in the vicinity of Kirkuk, currently in Kurdish control, then it might be able to create the conditions to constitute a durable state apparatus, ensuring its domination of the upper Euphrates valley and Ninawa and Anbar provinces against both the Shi'a dominated Iraqi regime and the Assad regime in Syria. The most likely avenue of advance for ISIS/ISIL, then, takes it into direct conflict with Kurdish forces to access the norther oil fields around Kirkuk. Before any of this can happen, however, the organization is sure to encounter a counteroffensive by the regime in Baghdad intended to retake Ninawa province, especially Tikrit and Mosul and to push back ISIS/ISIL forces from the immediate periphery of Baghdad. If the organization is capable of retaining its control of areas it currently possesses (again, a hugely big if, considering the large scale mobilization of Shi'a Mahdi irregulars that appears to be taking place), then it may enjoy the freedom to take on areas on the boundary of Kurdish control in the north in order to get at the northern oil fields. Assuming it can do so, it will need to find buyers, which may be a struggle in and of itself.
Even if ISIS/ISIL neither secures access of oil extracting regions in Iraq nor sells oil on the global marketplace, its continued existence as a visible threat to the capacity of the government in Baghdad and the regional authorities in Kurdistan to secure oil extraction for foreign concessions and to achieve transhipment of oil, through pipelines, to distribution points for international commerce must exert upward pressure on crude oil prices and on the prices for derivative products (e.g. gasoline), if only because the uncertainty of oil extraction in Iraq will result in a constriction in international supplies of petroleum. In view of the ubiquitous place of petroleum, as a central source of energy and an important raw material in diverse petro-chemical processes, such a supply shock will negatively impact global expectations for economic growth in the near term. That is to say, if something is not done to constrict the regional gains of ISIS/ISIL and to satisfy international investors that the group is holding on for dear life with no hope of impacting petroleum production in key Iraqi oil fields, then we may be heading toward a global economic recession, steeply impacting growth in the EU, China, and the U.S.
The extent to which ISIS/ISIL could become a serious platform for international terrorism is strictly questionable, notwithstanding ideological commitments by the organization against Western culture. Granted, given sufficient development of international networks supporting particular, well-planned and well-coordinated operations of strategic value (I'm thinking about September 11-type attacks), ISIS/ISIL could strike at Europe, the U.S., Russia, or China, in support of diverse strategic/ideological imperatives (e.g. against U.S. support for the government in Baghdad, in support of Chechens/Dagestani in the Russian Federation, in support of Muslim Uighur separatists in Chinese Xinjiang). Any radical Sunni Muslim movement that could gain access to ready sources of foreign exchange might become the central focus for international networks in support of diverse Muslim insurgents in a variety of regional contexts. In this respect, ISIS/ISIL is directly challenging Al Qaeda, under Ayman al-Zawahiri's adapt strategic leadership, for influence over ethnically focused Muslim movements, susceptible to the appeal of ideological Salafism. Succinctly, this is a reality that many states, especially on the immediate margins of the Muslim world, will have to recognize and deal with.
On the other hand, the same conditions that might make ISIS/ISIL appear as a committed partner to radical Muslim movements outside of Iraq (i.e. doctrinaire fidelity to the Salafist vision, even to the point exercising extreme and unjustifiable cruelty against the faithless/apostates for violation of Sharia law) could, ironically, be their undoing in Iraq and Syria. That is to say, if ISIS/ISIL makes too many enemies among their ex-Ba'athist allies and other populations in Ninawa and Anbar provinces, a reality that already seems to be manifesting itself in the flood of refugees into Baghdad and the Kurdish autonomous region from areas under ISIS/ISIL control, then it may be sowing the seeds for a domestic resistance that could be mobilized on the behalf of the Shi'a government in Baghdad, provided the latter does not respond in kind with a proportional degree of brutality against humanity! In the past weeks, reports have emerged of brutal actions from ISIS/ISIL (on execution of non-ISIS/ISIL rebel fighters in Syria, see "ISIS Crucifies 8 Rebel Fighters, According to Human Rights Group," from Reuters (29 June 2014), reprinted on The Huffington Post, The World Post, at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/29/isil-crucifies-eight-riva_n_5541140.html), including mass executions of Iraqi Army Shi'a prisoners captured at Mosul for espousing beliefs contrary to those practiced by ISIS/ISIL. Such practices may be key for the government in Baghdad and for the U.S. in generating an internal resistance to ISIS/ISIL. Similarly, while ISIS/ISIL has become the dominant, most aggressive anti-Assad resistance group in eastern Syria, its ideological incompatibility with all other resistance groups, even Jabhat al-Nusra, Syria's official Al Qaeda affiliate and ISIS/ISIL's primary Salafist rival, is leading to the group's isolation and may, potentially, create conditions for an anti-ISIS/ISIL coalition among resistance groups in Syria, especially if other high level supporters of the Sunni resistance in Syria (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, etc.) realize that the overall success of this type of Salafist group in Iraq and Syria threatens their own legitimacies if it can palpably exert the claim to foundation of a caliphate. ISIS/ISIL is not helping its case here by actively assaulting other resistance groups in Syria and executing rebel fighters who reject the group's radical Salafism.
Conversely, if strategies intended to ideologically isolate ISIS/ISIL and develop anti-ISIS/ISIL coalitions in both Iraq and Syria actually worked to defeat ISIS/ISIL, I still do not believe that it would be sufficient to resuscitate the project of an Iraqi nation, for reasons that I stated above. Rather, if the U.S. is to become involved in Iraq again, we need to seriously evaluate the current circumstances in Anbar and Ninawa provinces and in eastern Syria from a standpoint that is open to the development of an independent Sunni Islamic Arab state in this region, free from the reach of either Baghdad or Damascus, and open to outside intervention and support to improve the livelihoods of the populations contained within the area. Such a development, as suggested, would have to incorporate the active support of other states in the region, most notably Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf monarchies, to determine the terms under which a government conducive to the needs of both the local populations and the maintenance of the peace with both Iraq and Syria could be established. Succinctly, it would ratify the current reality that ISIS/ISIL, its (transitory) ex-Ba'athist allies in Iraq, and its anti-Assad rivals in Syria have constructed. There is no guarantee that, in the absence of ISIS/ISIL, such a state would not develop its own indigenous brand of Salafism, in turn nutured by Al Qaeda for its own purposes, but, given enough attention by outside backers to resolving economic and ecological issues facing the populations in these regions that, on a certain level, extend to the roots of conflict in both Iraq and Syria, an adequate basis might exist for stabilizing the region and removing the political void that is being filled by radical Salafism.
3. The extended disintegration of Syria provided the fuel for the success of ISIS/ISIL in Iraq. The Assad regime has nothing meaningful to contribute to the resolution of the current situation in the northeastern corner of Syria or in western and northern Iraq, and any interventions on its part can only complicate an already catastrophic situation.
I contributed a post in this blog last year on the conflict in Syria, concerning, for the most part, the use of chemical agents and the international response. In that post, I concluded that the Syrian civil war could go on for another decade and a half or more, with the Assad regime holding Damascus and its immediate suburbs, retaking Aleppo, retaining the coastal Alawite enclaves around Latakia and Tartous, and connecting all of these fragments along thin, well defended logistical corridors. The remainder of the country will be engaged in more or less continuous warfare between the Assad regime and rebels and among the rebel groups themselves. Nothing has changed since then to make me change my mind on the fate of Syria. Pointedly, the country will remain in a semi-permanent humanitarian crisis for the foreseeable future, and the Assad regime, with little danger of being dislodged by either pro-Western or Sunni Islamist/Salafist rebels and with ongoing support from Russia, Iran, and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, will remain in control of a dramatically shrunken geography of state power.
With this introduction in mind, I recall hearing last week, from diverse sources, that the Assad regime is attempting to intervene both in the conflict between ISIS/ISIL and other rebel groups in eastern Syria and has been engaging in limited airstrikes against ISIS/ISIL in Iraqi Anbar province. In eastern Syria, the regime's efforts appear directed to enabling ISIS/ISIL's success against groups supported more strongly by the West in order to progressively undermine conditions for Western intervention in the Syrian civil war. As such, the government has made the calculation that it can more readily take on ISIS/ISIL in these regions at a later date once Western support for the overthrow of Assad has dried up from a loss of actual combatants for the Western/liberal secularist cause. On the other hand, striking at ISIS/ISIL in Iraq has the dual effect of hindering a potential base for more recruits to the fight in Syria and potentially signaling a willingness of the regime to align itself with the Maliki government in opposing the expansion of ISIS/ISIL in Iraq. As such, I suspect that the Assad regime will attempt to continue a strategy of assisting ISIS/ISIL in Syria and simultaneously attacking it Iraq.
Obvious problems arise from the Assad government's actions here. First, the Maliki government has condemned Syrian intervention across the Iraqi border. It might be that Maliki would, personally, appreciate the assistance from Assad and, in any case, such support would conform to the larger development of an axis of Shi'a power incorporating the Assad government, Hezbollah, the Maliki government and the radical Shi'a movements it tacitly supports (i.e. the Mahdi movement), and Iran. On the other hand, if Maliki wants and hopes to receive the support of the U.S. and other Western powers to defeat ISIS/ISIL, then he cannot vocally and explicitly accept the assistance of a government that is becoming a pariah to the West. In this manner, the development of an integrated response to ISIS/ISIL by the Maliki and Assad governments would force Maliki to undertake a much broader reframing of his international support base, excluding the U.S. and appealing for assistance more directly to Russia and China, perhaps, in an effort to circumvent U.S. policy priorities with respect to Syria. It may be that Maliki will end up pursuing such a diplomatic course in the long run if he chooses to reject Western calls for his resignation (to say nothing of calls for moderation and integration of Sunnis into the government by Grand Ayatolla al-Sistani). In the near term, it may not be possible or practical for him to do so, however. It seems fair to say that the Maliki government will tacitly welcome Syrian airstrikes in Anbar province even as it condemns Assad for violating Iraqi airspace.
Fundamentally, the role of Syria in Iraq and the generalized influence of the Syrian civil war on the present crisis in Iraq brings us back to the historical linchpin for Sunni v. Shi'a conflict in this region, notably, the Shi'a Islamic revolution in Iran. In this respect, any influence of Syria on the situation in Iraq needs to be evaluated broadly in reference to the influence of Iran on the entire region.
4. An explicit and substantial Iranian military intervention in the Maliki government's struggle against ISIS/ISIL in western and northern Iraq would hold the potential for a broad increase and consolidation of radical Shi'a power across the Middle East, from Iran through Iraq, to the Assad regime, to Lebanon. However, such an investment would be very costly in terms of manpower and logistics, would undermine efforts by the President Rouhani to forge a rapprochement with the West over Iranian nuclear development, and, assuming a prolonged struggle with ISIS/ISIL, may introduce political instabilities among Shi'a populations in Iraq and in Iran, threatening the legitimacy of both governments and the legitimacy of the Shi'a Islamic revolution, as a whole.
I made the argument above that the Shi'a Islamic revolution in Iran represents a pivotal moment in the political trajectory of contemporary Iraq. It held enough potential to undermine the pan-Arab Ba'athist ideology of the Iraqi regime in 1979 to induce Saddam Hussein to invade Iran in an effort to destroy the revolution and prevent it from spreading to the Iraqi Shi'a majority. In this regard, Iraqi Ba'athism since the 1980s became synonomous with repression against Iraqi Shi'a to the benefit of the Iraqi Sunni minority. The restoration of Shi'a majority power in Iraq after the U.S. invasion and dismantling of the Ba'athist regime, thus, enacted a new cycle of sectarian rectification - Iraqi Shi'a, under the direction of the Maliki government, are reaping the political and economic rewards of majority rule at the expense of their now excluded and marginalized Sunni "countrymen." If, in certain respects, this rectification implicates the internal evolution of the Iraqi state, from the 1920s to the present, the Iranian Shi'a revolution nonetheless exerts a palpable influence on its execution. Shi'a militias, some of which had a history fighting on the Iranian side in the Iran-Iraq war (e.g. the Badr Brigades), have been enveloped by the contemporary Iraqi Army. More generally, Shi'a radicalism, most strongly reflected by the Mahdi movement and its leader Muqtada al-Sadr, continues to influence the Maliki government, and the partisan position of such entities reflects the legacy of the Iranian revolution.
It seems certain that Iranian entities, like the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, are already involved in Iraq, possibly training and organizing Mahdi irregulars to engage ISIS/ISIL in retaking areas of Ninawa and Anbar provinces. In important ways, a victory by the Maliki government against ISIS/ISIL in the north and west would be impossible without substantial military and logistical support from Tehran. Moreover, the support or disapproval by Iranian religious authorities, and most critically, Ayatolla Ali Khameni, of Maliki's performance in the effort to include Sunni and Kurdish partisan politicians in the new Iraqi government may be a critical influence forcing Maliki's departure from the upper instruments of the government in Baghdad. Critical appraisals of the Maliki government and calls for inclusion of moderate Sunnis in the new post-election government by such radical figures as Muqtada al-Sadr may reflect, in some degree, the influence of Iranian religious authorities and, in turn, may suggest a community of concerns between Grand Ayatolla al-Sistani and Ayatolla Khameni regarding the greater political stability of the Iraqi state and fears of the implications from the fracturing of Iraq into multiple sectarian pieces. Clearly, Iran is currently far more deeply implicated in the future of Iraq than the U.S., and, whether or not the Obama administration accepts tacit invitations from Tehran to collaborate in developing a resolution to Iraq's Salafist Sunni uprising, it appears certain that Iranian intervention is going to be a factor in Baghdad's efforts to regain control over Sunni areas.
The prospect of greater Iranian intervention in Iraq is relevant because such a move would significantly increase Iranian revolutionary Shi'a power in the Arab world, extending from the Iraqi frontier, through the Assad regime in Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon. A victory over ISIS/ISIL in Anbar province could be a prelude to direct Iranian intervention on the behalf of Assad in eastern Syria, to permanently defeat ISIS/ISIL in all of its current areas of control and, subsequently, prosecute offensive operations against Jabhat al-Nusra and other sectarian Sunni Salafist and relatively secular anti-Assad forces. If such a scenario appears vaguely conceivable at the present time, it likewise appears certain that the Sunni Gulf states and, especially, the Saudi royal family are not going to stand by and watch radical Shi'a Iran militarily create a consolidated power base in the Arab Shi'a cresent. They will have to intervene aggressively on the behalf of Sunni forces in these areas, perhaps going as far as to engage with militant Salafists/Al Qaeda in order to deny Tehran its long term objectives. Evaluating these circumstances from the standpoint of a higher level geopolitical strategy game, the emergence of a larger Sunni v. Shi'a battlefield extending across northern and western Iraq, through Syria, and into Lebanon would implicate divergent U.S., Russian, and, possibly, Chinese political interests and imperatives on the political organization of the Middle East. In short, we have the potential for a large scale interregional military conflict that is going to have to be addressed.
If the start of a new world war is the worst case scenario for what is currently happening in Iraq, we should also consider other possible outcomes. Notably, what happens if, as a result of stronger than expected opposition from Salafist forces in Iraq and widespread public disapprobation for criminal violence on the part of both sides, the legitimacy of radical Shi'a politics in both Iraq and Iran is undermined? That is to say, if ISIS/ISIL proves much stronger than expected and Iran finds itself invested in a long term sectarian civil war in which both sides are culpable for extreme crimes against humanity, it might shake some of the foundations of the Islamic revolution if millions of Iranians, otherwise apathetic toward the continuity of the Islamic Juridical Guardianship, are stirred to question the country's involvement in a seemingly endless and pointless conflict in Iraq. As unlikely as such a scenario might seem, the potential staying power of ISIS/ISIL in Iraq will rely on the group's capacity to supplant Al Qaeda (or, perhaps, compel al-Zawahiri to concede the necessity of aligning Al Qaeda with ISIS/ISIL against the Shi'a apostates) as the central focus of Salafist militancy in the world and, as such, to command financial support and the imagination of thousands of Sunni jihadis from as far away as Xinjiang or Chechnya or Somalia or northeastern Nigeria. Before we laugh off the idea that the erstwhile Caliph al-Baghdadi will hold out against the Iraqi Army supported by the Mahdi "Peace Brigades" and Iranian Revolutionary Guard contingents, it is worth considering what the political implications of waging a successful effort to defend a separate Sunni state in northern and western Iraq might be for both Baghdad and Tehran.
5. Notwithstanding any implications of a long term conflict between Sunni and Shi'a in Iraq on global petroleum markets (and the potential for derivative consequences on economic growth), the Obama administration has no business whatsoever getting involved unilaterally in the defense of the Maliki government against ISIS/ISIL. The U.S. needs to seriously engage with the EU, Russia, China, and other stakeholders in the Middle East (Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf monarchies, Iran, and Israel) to find an amenable course to reesablish peace and stability in Iraq, even if this means the division of the country.
Critically, the U.S. has nothing to gain from either the victory of a Salafist movement in northern and western Iraq or the victory of a radical Shi'a-dominated government in Baghdad, allied with Iran, to displace Sunni Salafists in these regions. Both these scenarios portend negative effects to U.S. policy objectives in the Middle East, to the extent that the central objective of U.S. foreign policy is and has to be nurturing the development of liberal secular, pro-Western democracies in the Arab world. It is certainly unclear that this has historically been our objective - where did the Mubarak regime of Egypt fit in if we were such great defenders of the liberal democratic principle?! Rather, if the U.S. is going to stand up for a principled engagement with the Arab world, then we need to reconsider what our objectives should be, in the face of crises like those going on presently in Iraq and like the lingering disaster that is Syria under Assad. We cannot afford to be driven by the short-sighted self-interests of global financial actors and the major oil companies in the determination of policies toward these countries. And, more importantly, we cannot let the Zionist lobby in Congress continue to shape U.S. policy toward the Arab world and Iran around the policy priorities of Israel and, most specifically, that of the Likud Party.
Emphatically, the U.S. cannot embark on a unilateral course of policy in defense of the Maliki government, even insofar as the alternative appears to be a victory for Salafists and the establishment of a safe haven for international Salafist terrorism. The Obama administration has been right to call for the new post-election government in Baghdad to incorporate a much greater diversity of representation from among Sunni, Shi'a, and Kurdish constituencies, echoing the same message from Grand Ayatolla al-Sistani that is now, likewise, being reiterated by religious authorities in Iran. It was, however, a mistake to send military advisors into Iraq. The Maliki government's fight against ISIS/ISIL is not an American fight and we should not allow it to become one! Such a move brings us closer to conceding that we have a community of interests with Iran in securing political stability in Iraq even if it means enabling the growth of radical streams of Shi'a Islam, conforming to the partisan line of the Iranian Shi'a revolution (e.g. the Mahdi movement). If, in these terms, individuals like Muqtada al-Sadr currently support the integration of moderate Sunnis into the new Iraqi government, I would argue, they are doing so with short term partisan objectives in mind. The ultimate goal of such groups remains the enactment of a Shi'a revolutionary guardianship along Iranian lines and, hence, the abnegation of electoral democracy and parliamentary government by forcing it to bend to the will of theocratic authorities.
In my view, the U.S. needs to engage other stakeholders in the political stability of the larger Middle East region to develop a broader plan on how to deal with the dual crises in Iraq and Syria. Succinctly, I think such discussions must begin with the larger question of whether these states, in their current forms, are viable absent either a perpetual continuation of sectarian violence or massive repression to quell such conflict. I have attempted to make the point in this post, I consider the answer to this question to be an emphatic "no" - the best solution, at present, would be one that appeals to ethnic and sectarian homogenization, with an eye toward the organization of multiple state structures conforming to the will of each discrete population. Iraqi Kurdistan is already well on its way to achieving these ends. How do we achieve the same ends for the Sunni territories in northern and western Iraq and for areas of Syria seeking to break off from rule by Damascus?
It goes without saying that ISIS/ISIL should not be a part of such a resolution and cannot be included in discussions promoting such ends. On the other hand, maybe at some point in the very near future, certain ex-Ba'athist contingents within the alliance that currently rules over Sunni Iraq, discontented with the evident course being followed by ISIS/ISIL, might be willing to talk about the possibilities of establishing a break away state in Anbar and Ninawa provinces, nominally secular and at least potentially open to democratic organization. If support for such an idea does not present itself among the ex-Ba'athists, then maybe other "tribal" leaders in Sunni areas would be willing to move in this direction, at least partly in reaction to what seems certain to be a reign of terror at the hands of ISIS/ISIL. In other words, the preferable course of action to resolve the rise of ISIS/ISIL would involve recourse to the same sort of power brokering with local populations and local stakeholders that preceded the Sunni "Awakening" against Al Qaeda in Iraq in 2006. Only this time, the carrot to local leaders should include a promise never to force them to live under the yoke of a Shi'a dominated government in Baghdad again. The travesty that was the Sykes-Picot agreement needs to be undone in the name of peace and, at least, the possibility of democracy.
The particulars, especially concerning economic development, natural resource management, and responding to the ecological needs of local populations, need to also be addressed to ensure that any new states are constructed in a viable form relative to their emerging population bases. Moreover, arriving at such a situation must involve careful diplomatic maneuvering if the diverse interests of the major Sunni powers (Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf monarchies), Iran, Russia, the EU, and China in the region are to be harmonized. Again, as I argued in my last post on Syria, it is distinctly utopian to think that such a regional restructuring should even be possible, but I think that it is also the only hope for the larger region to avoid the destructive consequences of long term Sunni v. Shi'a conflict that will, no doubt, impose negative effects on the entire world. As such, to the extent that the U.S. is still even capable of exercising some influence as a policy maker and diplomatic force in the Middle East, it would do the world a favor by thinking more creatively about how Iraq and Syria should look, given contemporary realities on the ground, and begin talking to the rest of the world about what needs to be done to get there.
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