The Issue: Partition of Iraq and Syria - People have talked about Iraq breaking up for years. Now it may actually happen. - WP
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Turns Out, Joe Biden Was Right About Dividing Iraq
I
Ottoman Empire
Present Day
Hypothetical Future...
...Or Maybe Everything Will Stay The Same
n September, U.S. author and analyst Robin Wright, writing in "
The New York Times
," imagined what the map of the Middle East might look like if it were redrawn along ethnic and religious lines.
Decentralization of power in a region used to being run by heavy-handed dictators, she argued, could cause ethnic and religious groups to coalesce beyond the borders drawn up by Europe after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
Recent unrest in Iraq seemed to provide a preview of Wright's theory.
Western Iraq saw a Sunni insurgency in the latter part of the last decade, and many of those same fighters joined Sunni militant groups in Syria's civil war. One of them, the Al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), has taken its fight back to Iraq -- though, so far at least, Iraqi Sunni tribal leaders have mostly backed the government in trying to repel the group.
Here are three maps: today's Iraq and Syria; those lands in Ottoman times; and one hypothetical future scenario.
Ottoman Empire
At the turn of the 20th century, there was no Iraqi nor Syrian state -- most of the populated Middle East was still controlled by the 450-year-old Ottoman Empire. A portion of present-day Iraq and Syria were independent Islamic polities.
Present Day
Defeat in World War I caused the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and a reconfiguration of the Middle East. The newly created League of Nations gave mandates to the British and the French to administer the territories and define national borders. By the late 1940s, the countries had gained their independence but kept the redrawn borders. The newly independent states soon ushered in a prolonged period of Arab nationalism and strong -- mostly secular -- centralized power.
The Sunni-dominated Ba'ath Party led Iraq from the late 1960s until Saddam Hussein was overthrown in a U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The al-Assad family, from the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, has ruled Syria for the past 40 years.
Hypothetical Future...
The combined impact of the sectarian strife that followed the Iraq War and the brutal Syrian civil war has caused ethnic and religious identification to take on increasing importance.
Majority rule in Iraq all but guarantees a Shi'ite lock on the government, which has been reluctant to give Sunnis more than token political power. Corruption and cronyism reinforce the sectarian divide.
Our hypothetical future map -- based on Wright's thesis,
Columbia University ethnographic maps
, and RFE/RL regional expertise -- imagines how these tensions might see Iraq and Syria split into four new states.
*
Shi'ite state.
With the exception of a swath of Sunnis in the southeastern part of the country, Iraq's Shi'ite stronghold runs from Baghdad to the eastern border with Iran. Sunnis, mostly in the west, have been angered by the seeming outsized influence that Tehran -- the region's Shi'ite power broker -- has in the country.
*
Sunni state.
A Sunni-dominated "heartland" stretches west of Baghdad and through most of Syria. In Syria, a military stalemate has prevented an outright victory by the majority Sunnis so partition (with much of the country joining with Sunnis in Iraq) might become a realistic alternative.
*
Kurdish state.
Iraq's autonomous and relatively violence-free Kurdish region has made moves to untether itself economically from Baghdad (it is pursuing its own oil deal with Turkey, for instance) and has cooperated with Kurds in northeastern Syria.
*
Alawite state.
Although a minority, the Alawites -- with significant Christian support -- still control much of coastal Syria. Some opposition supporters have accused the regime of President Bashar al-Assad of a concerted effort to displace Sunni populations in the west to set up a future Alawite state. The only Alawite stronghold, however, is in the northwest, with Latakia as the base. If Assad were to find himself on the defensive, his government could try to retreat to this region as a last resort.
...Or Maybe Everything Will Stay The Same
Despite the sectarian tensions, regional and world powers fear major convulsions in the Middle East and are likely to work to keep Iraq and Syria intact.
Arab identity, though now weaker than sectarianism, is also still a factor. The Shi'a in Iraq consider themselves wholly distinct from those in Iran, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis -- Shi'a and Sunnis -- died fighting against Iran in the 1980s.
It is also unlikely that the Iraqi government would willingly give up control over any of its territory. A power-sharing arrangement between Shi'ite and Sunni leaders could develop.
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· · ·
In 2006, as Iraq descended into sectarian violence, two men wrote an op-ed for the New York Times. They argued that we could only "maintain a united Iraq by decentralizing it, giving each ethno-religious group — Kurd, Sunni Arab and Shiite Arab — room to run its own affairs, while leaving the central government in charge of common interests."
One of those two authors, Leslie H. Gelb, is president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. The other was a U.S. senator for Delaware, Joe Biden. The idea stoked some controversy at the time, with critics describing it as a "partition." But the logic was understandable.
Iraq broadly falls into distinct regions that line up with ethnic or religious groups: A Kurdish north, a Sunni middle, and a Shiite south. Iraq's modern borders were defined by its time in the Ottoman Empire and subsequent years as a British mandate, and you can make an argument that they are "artificial." Many felt that Saddam Hussein and his minority Sunni government had only been able to maintain a centralized, national government with repressive, dictatorial tactics. That wasn't compatible with a modern democracy, and the fear was that if regions weren't given more power, conflict was inevitable.
Given recent events, those fears look justified. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an Islamist extremist group birthed from al-Qaeda, has taken over many of the Sunni areas of Iraq, including the major city of Mosul. Baghdad's majority-Shiite government, led by Nouri al-Maliki, appears unable to force its own army to face them on the battlefield – and worse still, their policies appear to have led many moderate Sunnis to grudgingly accept ISIS. Meanwhile, the Kurds have taken the northern city of Kirkuk, one of the few remaining disputed areas (the Kurds have long enjoyed virtual autonomy). On Friday, Shiite militias began gathering to take up arms.
In effect, the country is de-facto partitioned. As The Post's Liz Sly tweeted this week, "Iraq is basically falling apart. No other way to put it."
When reached by phone Thursday, Gelb explained that the current situation was exactly what he had feared. "This is the worst of all possible worlds – anarchy!" he said.
Gelb has long maintained that he and Biden never said they supported partitioning Iraq, as their critics suggested. Instead, what they had hoped for was a federal government "like the U.S. or Switzerland," he explains. "I think [a partition] destroys the economic viability of the territories. It creates a permanent warfare among the sections," he added. When asked if this could happen even if the Baghdad government tries to retain unity, he says it could. "That is the danger now."
Biden and Gelb's plan won the endorsement of the Senate in 2007, though it was not binding and failed to convince President George W. Bush. It also apparently failed to compel Maliki. While Iraq's constitution actually does allow for power to be devolved to regions, Maliki blocked a number of Kurdish and Sunni attempts at regionalism and eventually allowed his central government to become dominated by Shiite Islamists.
Volunteers who have joined the Iraqi army to fight against the predominantly Sunni militants from the radical Islamist State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who have taken over Mosul and other northern provinces, prepare to board a bus in Najaf on June 13. (Alaa Al-Marjani/Reuters)
Even if Biden and Gelb were hesitant to use the word "partition," others were not. Peter Galbraith, writing in 2007, put it simply: "Let’s face it: partition is a better outcome than a Sunni-Shiite civil war." Galbraith, a longtime U.S. diplomat, had long advocated an even further devolution of power than federalization. Asked about recent events, he was unequivocal. "It's the end of Iraq," Galbraith, now a state senator in Vermont, said. "It is the breakup of Iraq along the lines of three communities. It isn't just that ISIS came into the Sunni areas with a small number of really dedicated fighters who were able to defeat a much larger and demoralized Iraqi army, it is that the population is increasingly hostile to the Iraqi army, seeing it as Shiite army."
"Meanwhile, over the last 24 hours, the Kurds have now taken and secured Kirkuk – in other words all of their disputed territory," he said, adding that Kurdish Iraqis had "never wanted to be a part of Iraq" and were now openly talking about independence. Galbraith argues that Maliki squandered his opportunity for the federalism that Gelb and Biden espoused. "He tried to run the same authoritarian, centralized Iraq that had always been the case, but he never had the power," he says.
The idea that Iraq's sectarian differences are intractable has proved unpopular with many, not least Iraqi politicians, many of whom criticized Biden's plan after it passed the Senate in 2007. A BBC pollfrom the time found that only 9 percent of respondents favored “a country divided into separate states." Reidar Visser, a historian of Iraq educated at the University of Oxford who is based at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, has been a vocal critic of the way that the United States has stressed proportional sectarian representation rather than national Iraqi unity. He sees the current situation as disastrous, and worries that it may widen. "A formal partition of Iraq would add fuel to the flames of Syria and potentially could intensify current sectarian strife in places like Lebanon and Saudi Arabia," he writes in an e-mail.
A masked pesh merga fighter from Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region guards a temporary camp set up to shelter Iraqis fleeing violence in the northern Nineveh province in Aski kalak near the region's capital Arbil on June 13. (Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty Images
Galbraith agrees that it's hard to see how this current situation could be interpreted positively. He argues, however, that there's little anyone can do at this point. "It's happened. And there's a broader phenomenon: The end of World War I settlement. It ended in Europe in 89-91 with Yugoslavia. And now its happening with Syria and Iraq." His comments echo a theoretical map put together last year by foreign policy analyst Robin Wright, who imagined a "Sunnistan," "Shiiteistan," "Kurdistan" and "Alawitestan" making up what is now Iraq and Syria.
Joe Biden, of course, has been vice president of the United States since 2008. His hopes for a federalized, regionally devolved Iraq received little attention after he took office. In 2010, as the sectarian strife that had plagued Iraq over the previous years appeared to calm, he spoke more positively of the future of Iraq in an interview with CNN's Larry King, arguing that it would be seen as "one of the great achievements of this administration."
Adam Taylor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. Originally from London, he studied at the University of Manchester and Columbia University.
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The partitioning of the Ottoman Empire (30 October 1918 – 1 November 1922) was a political event that occurred after World War I. The huge conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was divided into several new states.[1] The partitioning brought the creation of the modern Arab world and the Republic of Turkey.
Earlier this year, Iraq’s parliament approved a new power-sharing government led by Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi. The move toward political inclusion was encouraging, especially as Iraqi forces continued to battle the militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). For weeks, though, two key cabinet positions—Minister of Defense and Minister of the Interior—remained unfilled. Onlookers held their breath as they waited to see whether Shia, Sunni, and Kurdish politicians would be able to compromise on these all-important security posts.
The appointments, which were finally made in October, might represent a genuine attempt at reconciliation. The choice of Mohammed al-Ghabban, who belongs to the Badr Organization, as the new interior minister could be an adept way to bring hardliners into the fold. So, too, could the selection Khaled al-Obeidi as the new minister of defense be a genuine attempt at inclusivity. Obeidi previously served as an adviser to the governor of Nineveh Province. When Mosul fell to ISIS this summer, he emphasized the need for granting Iraq’s regions greater autonomy and even creating a separate Sunni Arab army.
Alternatively, the appointments might be run-of-the-mill bartering. And with violence showing no signs of abating, Iraq’s leaders will likely face considerable pressure from sectarian extremists. If the government of Iraq proves unable to get beyond sharing power through high-level appointments, it will only fuel the ongoing civil war and could lead to territorial partition along sectarian and ethnic lines.
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Every week, The WorldPost asks an expert to shed light on a topic driving headlines around the world. Today, we speak with Emile Hokayem, senior fellow for Middle East Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, about developments in Iraq.
The Islamic State group's militant takeover of the Iraqi city of Ramadi last Sunday marked asignificant blow to the fight against the group in the Middle East. Coupled with the loss of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra to IS forces days later, there has been concern among analysts that the current U.S.-led coalition's strategy of airstrikes against IS and efforts to rebuild Iraq's army isn't effective in stopping insurgent advances.
Ramadi's citizens now face atrocities under the extremist group and further conflict as Iranian-backed Shiite militias attempt to dislodge the extremists. After the city's loss, many politicians and power groups within Iraq have criticized Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's rule. Abadi had promised an offensive against the Islamic State group in Iraq's largest province of Anbar in early April, but lost Anbar's capital of Ramadi after security forces collapsed.
The WorldPost spoke with Emile Hokayem, senior fellow for Middle East Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, to discuss some of the political issues facing Iraq after Ramadi's fall.
Ramadi fell after a three-day advance. How were the extremist fighters able to do this and what does that say about the current state of Iraqi forces?
The fall of Ramadi was a shock not in the sense that it wasn’t likely to happen, but that a few of us analysts assumed that some lessons from the fall of Mosul about how ISIS operates had been learned. That the Iraqi government, the U.S. and others had understood that preventing the fall of Ramadi was a priority, and that the strategy and tactics and resources were all in line with that objective.
In March and April, when Tikrit fell back into the hands of the Iraqi government and the militias, ISIS showed its face within days in Ramadi, proving how agile and opportunistic the group remains even when faced with setbacks.
The fall of Ramadi basically echoes the fall of Mosul. You had ISIS developing then activating sleeper cells, then deploying suicide bombers and fighters very quickly. In addition, the leadership of the Iraqi security forces was weak and divided: elite soldiers were few and exhausted, Sunni fighters demoralized, the police ran away.
Under former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki the Sunni communities in Iraq were very disenfranchised. Has the new leader, Abadi, been different?
There has been a change in tone and in how he did business. Abadi has proven a lot more sensitive and responsive to the Sunni community, which actually led to allegations within the Shia community that he was too soft on them.
Ironically, Abadi’s attempt to be inclusive may have weakened rather than strengthened him. Now there’s a challenge to him not only from Maliki but also from militia commanders who think he’s too soft and don’t like his proximity to and reliance on the U.S.
These [militia commanders] are closer to the Iranians and they caused divisions that played out in the takeover of Tikrit. These are likely to play out again now in Ramadi and will have an impact on what happens next in Anbar province.
In Tikrit there was a large reliance on the Iranian-backed Shiite militias -- the popular mobilization units -- and seemingly now in Ramadi that’s happening again. What are the potential risks of that reliance?
These militias are extremely controversial. They have allowed an amount of sectarian cleansing against Sunni communities east and south of Baghdad, and even in Baghdad. But they are also effective, dedicated and relatively well organized. Their ties with Iran vary considerably.
The problem with these militias that operate technically under the [Iraqi] government is that the many anti-ISIS Sunni groups feel in comparison abandoned by both the Iraqi and U.S. governments. The Iraqi government is [worried] about supporting them because they fear that these groups will either sell their weapons to ISIS or align with ISIS or resist the government in a post-ISIS phase.
This means that in turn those groups feel that they’re spilling their blood against ISIS with no support, and they’re basically the cannon fodder. There’s a lot of resentment here and there’s a lot of concern that the United States, because it is pursuing a nuclear deal with Iran, is unwilling to challenge the Iranians in Iraq and elsewhere.
Do you think that’s a legitimate accusation?
I wouldn’t say it’s an accusation. I think that the United States has prioritized the Iranian nuclear deal and doesn’t want to do anything to jeopardize a deal before it is finalized. That has had an impact in Syria, in Lebanon and in Iraq on U.S. policy.
In terms of Prime Minister Abadi, how embattled or criticized is his government after the fall of Ramadi?
He’s been weakened by the fall of Ramadi, that’s undeniable. He initially agreed with the United States that Shiite militias should not be deployed in Anbar too early for fear this would alienate the local population. So these Shiite militias are now saying his decision led to the fall of Ramadi.
Then he’s also accused by Sunnis of not having armed them and supported them enough in the fight against ISIS. His own competence in reforming the Iraqi army is also coming under attack, so this is a pretty difficult moment for the prime minister.
All these accusations are partly valid and partly exaggerated. He’s been trying to play this very delicate balancing game for a year now with pretty inadequate tools and with a variety of actors with very divergent interests.
He doesn’t have that many allies in Baghdad; he was a consensus candidate for prime minister but he was never a strongman -- it’s not in his character. What made him appealing and worked for him a year ago now seems to work in his disfavor.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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· · · · ·
"They (Americans) want Iraq to be divided into three countries, Syria into two countries and Yemen into northern and southern states," Rezaei said Sunday at a press conference in Tehran.
Making a reference to the remarks made by US officials about partition of Iraq, Rezaei said Washington wants to do the dividing of the Arab country by itself but has left Yemen and Syria to the Saudi rulers.
Should the US plan get implemented, the Iranian official warned, insecurity will plague the region for at least 20 to 30 years.
Although there are disagreements within the Saudi royal family over that plan, Riyadh is assigned to perform part of the partition project in Syria and Yemen anyway, he added.
"The US seeks to break up Iraq directly, without the help of Turkey and Saudi Arabia, but has left Yemen to the Saudis," Rezaei stated.
Back in 2007, incumbent US Vice President Joe Biden advocated a proposal for a three-way partition of Iraq.
Iraq has been the scene of clashes between military forces and the ISIL terrorists since the foreign-backed militants attacked the Arab country from Syria in summer 2014.
Syria has been also gripped by civil war since March 2011. According to the United Nations, more than 220,000 people have been killed and one million wounded during the conflicts.
Yemen has been under deadly air strikes by a Saudi-led coalition since March 26. According to the spokesman of the Yemeni Army, attacks on the Arab country have killed more than 2,000 people, most of them civilians.
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Iraqi PM slams US bill proposing to split country into three states
Al-Bawaba-May 3, 2015
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has denounced a controversial US Congress bill aimed atdividing the Arab country into three states.
Briefing: GOP '16 Field Still Divided by Iraq
U.S. News & World Report (blog)-3 hours ago
Here is your Three-Minute Briefing, all the News You Can Use in 180 ... the GOP field in declaring the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a bad idea.
January 30, 2014 In his new book Duty: Memoir of a Secretary at War, Robert Gates memorably impugns Joe Biden's judgment as "wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades." Central to his argument is Biden's opposition to the "troop surge" that President Bush and then-Defense Secretary Gates launched in 2007 to bolster a shaky government in Baghdad and save Iraq from a sectarian civil war.
Biden, then a senator, championed a more federal system explicitly allowed by the Iraqi constitution (at the insistence of the Kurds), devolving power from the central government in Baghdad to the provinces. Although Biden denied it at the time, his proposal would almost certainly have led to the de facto soft partition of Iraq into three autonomous regions dominated by Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. A similar approach in the 1990s patched together Bosnia out of the detritus of the Balkans civil war between Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. In a 2007 op-ed, Biden warned, "If the United States can't put this federalism idea on track, we will have no chance for a political settlement in Iraq and, without that, no chance for leaving Iraq without leaving chaos behind."
He was ahead of his time. "Biden got it dead right, and I still think transitioning to a federal power-sharing arrangement is the only way to stop the killing and hold Iraq together," says Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, who wrote the op-ed with Biden.
Indeed, Iraq today is in danger of slipping back into civil war. From the moment the last U.S. troops left in late 2011, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and his Shiite-led government set about ruthlessly consolidating power. They ordered the arrest of political opponents, including the Sunni vice president, who was charged with murder and fled the country. The Sunni tribal sheikhs behind the "Anbar Awakening"—whose decision to turn against the Sunnis of al-Qaida in Iraq and fight alongside U.S. forces was critical to pulling Iraq back from the abyss—have been systematically marginalized. Promises of government salaries and the incorporation of their militias into the Iraqi security forces were never fully honored. Last year, the military launched a bloody crackdown on mostly peaceful Sunni demonstrations, killing 38 protesters and sparking a popular revolt.
Bolstered by the violence next door in Syria and a growing Sunni disaffection in Iraq, al-Qaida has predictably come storming back into Anbar, recapturing the strategic city of Fallujah. Al-Qaida's strategy of slaughtering Shiite civilians to spark a civil war is largely behind a 2013 wave of violence that killed nearly 8,000 Iraqis and wounded an estimated 25,000—representing the worst violence since the U.S. troop surge. "There is a revolt in the desert led by a younger generation of Sunni tribal leaders, who are pissed off and reject the older generation's failed outreach to Maliki and the central government," says Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer in the Middle East who remains in frequent touch with Iraq's Sunni tribes. "Iraq is breaking apart before our eyes along the natural sectarian borders of Kurdistan, Sunni-stan, and Shiite-stan, and that drift apart looks increasingly inevitable."
The way to stop the violence may be separation. "Iraq is at a crossroads, and I do think federalism could solve many of the problems we face," said Osama al-Nujayfi, the Sunni speaker of Iraq's Council of Representatives, speaking last week at the Brookings Institution. The Kurdish region in the north is already largely autonomous and peaceful, and at least two other provinces (including the strategically important and oil-rich Shiite region around Basra in the south) have begun the constitutional process for gaining regional autonomy. To date, their requests to the electoral commission in Baghdad to hold local referendums on autonomy, he said, have been ignored by the federal government and fiercely opposed by Maliki. "The government has a double standard, supporting some favored groups and oppressing others, and they are demanding their rights under the federal system spelled out in the constitution," Nujayfi said. "If the government does not respect the constitution and the rule of law, then citizens will find alternatives. That is very dangerous, because some provincial governors are already talking about rebellion."(Stephanie Stamm)
(Stephanie Stamm)
Perhaps if the Obama administration had not precipitously withdrawn U.S. troops in 2011, after failing to reach a Status of Forces Agreement with Baghdad, Iraq might have completed a more orderly democratic transition with functional governing institutions and separation of powers. (Although it's possible that Maliki saw U.S. troops as impediments to his consolidation of power and that no agreement would have been acceptable to him.) What's increasingly clear is that Iraq failed to make the transition to a democratic political system and culture, and, without a strong center, the sectarian forces are once again pulling it apart.
A Maliki victory in the April elections, increased Kurdish agitation for outright independence, or continued territorial gains by al-Qaida all threaten to accelerate that devolution. "Maliki gets the lion's share of the blame, because his paranoia and ruthless consolidation of power have terrified the rest of the country," says Kenneth Pollack, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy and a former CIA Middle East analyst. "But what's done is done, and at this point it's hard to see how you put Humpty Dumpty back together again out of Iraq's Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish parts. To make Iraq work probably requires a shift of power from the center to the periphery."
Which is what Biden was saying all along.
This article appears in the February 1, 2014 edition of National Journal Magazine as Biden Was Right.
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· · · ·
Story highlights
- Division of Iraq into ethnic regions looks more likely than ever before
- Iraq experts say cycle of violence is hardening sectarian divide -- wrecking chance of negotiated separation
- Sunni areas in west would not be economically viable unless they received oil revenues from other regions
- Independent Sunni region, free from discrimination by majority Shia government, might escape extremist rule
Iraq is tearing itself apart. Its government has lost control of large parts of the country; intercommunal violence is rife and al Qaeda is resurgent. A description not of 2014 but 2006 -- and a situation that led Joseph R. Biden, then a U.S. Senator and now Vice President, to argue that it was time to split Iraq into three parts: Kurdish, Shia and Sunni.
Biden and Leslie Gelb, in an op-ed for the New York Times, looked to Bosnia as the modern precedent, which they asserted had been preserved by "paradoxically, dividing it into ethnic federations, even allowing Muslims, Croats and Serbs to retain separate armies."
It was a formula, they believed, that could work in Iraq.
"The Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite regions would each be responsible for their own domestic laws, administration and internal security. The central government would control border defense, foreign affairs and oil revenues." So ran the argument.
The Biden/Gelb plan was endorsed by the U.S. Senate in 2007 but ignored by the Bush Administration. Seven years later, the division of Iraq into ethnic regions looks more likely than ever. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) holds much of western and northern Iraq, including the city of Mosul, and the Kurdish leadership is pressing ahead with plans for a referendum as a likely step towards a unilateral declaration of independence.
Ramzy Mardini, an Iraq expert at the Atlantic Council, says: "The basic equation is this: ISIS provokes Shiites, Shiites overreact and generalize their response against Sunnis, and more Sunnis come to support ISIS. It's a vicious circle, with each cycle hardening the sectarian divide."
For that reason, the chances of a negotiated separation have evaporated.
"Biden often saw Iraq through the lens of the former Yugoslavia, [but] borders can't come from pencil and paper," Mardini told CNN. "It would have to come out of ethnic war."
"Iraq is a state that has always been governed under authoritarian rule. Assuming it can suddenly pivot to a federal, democratic system is naive, not only about the history of Iraq, but about the political system of federalism in general. Federalism is a complicated and sophisticated framework."
Among the many obstacles to a negotiated break-up, Sunni areas in the west would not be economically viable unless they received a share of oil revenues from other regions; theirs is the only part of Iraq not sitting on lakes of oil.
There are also few natural borders, and plenty of areas -- especially Baghdad and Diyala province -- where the different communities live cheek by jowl. Sunnis would not agree to Kurdish rule of the mixed city of Kirkuk.
"For a decade now, they have been unable to pass a revenue-sharing and oil law," Mardini says. "How will you get Shiite Iraq to share their revenues with Sunni Iraq? And how do you get the Iraqis to agree on the borders of the regions? That would require political settlements on all disputed territories - and we know how hard it has been to do that for the last decade."
A redrawing of the map, whether at a conference or through conflict, would have a huge impact on the region. Turkey, Iran and Syria -- all of which have their own Kurdish minorities -- would be wary of an oil-rich Kurdish state on their borders.
The Shiite part of Iraq would most likely become closely integrated with Iran, giving Tehran much more leverage over Iraq's oil industry. "The unity of Iraq has been a major core interest for the United States for a reason," Mardini says. "Without the Sunnis and Kurds as a part of Iraq, then there's not much to help balance out the influence Iran has in the country's national oil politics."
On the other hand, an independent Sunni region -- one that no longer felt discriminated against by a majority Shia government -- might be saved from falling into extremist hands. The Sunnis would have no incentive to turn to a jihadist group like ISIS as an ally if they had no enemy in Baghdad. Equally, they might make common cause with Syria's Sunnis. Many of the tribes live both sides of the border.
The collapse of Iraq raises the specter of mass migration and violence of the sort that accompanied the birth of India and Pakistan. It is a real danger, but the current situation has already driven thousands of people from their homes; hundreds more have been killed.
Some historians argue that Iraq was never really a country anyway, more a colonial confection like British India, and we are now seeing the inevitable consequence.
The Rest Is History
In the early 20th century, tribes were paramount in the vast Arabian deserts. The arbitrary carve-up of Arabia began with the Sykes Picot agreement in 1916, with the French taking the mandate to govern Syria and Lebanon, and the British what was then Palestine and Iraq. In 1919 the League of Nations rubber-stamped French and British administration of vast areas of what had been the Ottoman Empire.
Iraq's borders were created at a conference in Cairo in 1921, largely thanks to Winston Churchill and T E Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia), who were among about 40 British officials gathered at the Semiramis Palace on the Nile. They effectively invented Iraq, setting up Faisal bin Hussein as the king of a new country. Faisal was a Sunni and a Hashemite who wasn't even from Iraq. British policy was to promote the interests of the Sunni and other minorities as a counter-balance to the Shia majority -- and expel troublesome Shia clergy, all tools that Saddam Hussein would find useful a half-century later.
Against the advice of several experts, the new Iraq included the Kurdish-dominated province of Mosul, as a buffer against both Turkey and Russia (soon to become the Soviet Union.)
One of the senior advisers at the Cairo Conference was Gertrude Bell, an indomitable traveler who knew many of the region's tribal sheikhs. Bell -- and many since -- underestimated the power of the Shia clergy. And she over-estimated the power of British rule. She told Jafar al Askari, who would become Prime Minister of the young Iraq, that "complete independence is what we ultimately wish to give."
"My lady," al Askari replied, "complete independence is never given; it is always taken" -- words that may have a new resonance in Iraq today.
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Iraq, known in classical antiquity as Mesopotamia, was home to the oldest civilizations in the world,[1][2] with a cultural history of over 10,000 years,[3][4][5] hence its common epithet, the Cradle of Civilization. Mesopotamia, as part of the larger Fertile Crescent, was a significant part of the Ancient Near East throughout the Bronze Age and the Iron Age.
Iraq is already splitting into three states - USA Today
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Jul 28, 2014 - Iraq is already splitting into three states The U.S. fear of a splintered Iraq ... that the country be divided into three autonomous regions with a ...
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Iraqis inspect the remains of the grave of the Nebi Yunus, or prophet Jonah, in Mosul on July 24. Members of the jihadist Islamic State allegedly demolished the historic site.(Photo: european pressphoto agency)
Ever since U.S. forces invaded Iraq and toppled in 2003, the U.S. government has worried that Iraq would splinter into three states — each representing the feuding religious and ethnic factions the dictator held together through his iron rule.
It may no longer be necessary to worry that Iraq will break apart. In many ways, it already has.
The radical Islamic State that seized a swath of western and central Iraq last month effectively left the nation in three pieces, government officials and analysts say.
The United States worries that a fractured Iraq could lead to a failed state, allowing the radical Islamists to establish a stronghold from which they can export terrorism to other parts of the region and world.
, who served as U.S. ambassador to Iraq from 2007 to 2009, described the divisions as "Shiastan," "Jihadistan" and Kurdistan. The references are to the majority Shiite Muslims, who run the national government in ; the insurgent Sunni Muslim jihadists who make up the Islamic State; and the ethnic Kurds, who have long presided over an oil-rich, semiautonomous enclave in the north
"In a sense, it's apocalypse now," Crocker said.
"Iraq is not one Iraq anymore," Fuad Hussein, chief of staff to Kurdistan Regional Government President , said at the during a recent U.S. visit.
The challenge for Washington is determining whether — and how — the country can be pieced back together. The says Iraq must stay united if it is to take back the country from the radical Islamists.
Ironically, had argued as a U.S. senator in 2006, when Iraq was in the throes of sectarian violence, that the country be divided into three autonomous regions with a weak central government . His idea never gained traction, and the administration in which he serves as vice president argues the opposite view.
"The strongest single blunt to that threat (division) would be a strong capable federal government in Iraq that is actually able to exert control and influence to push back on that threat," Elissa Slotkin, a top Pentagon official, testified to Congress recently.
Politicians in Baghdad are haggling over formation of a unity government that can fulfill the mission outlined by Slotkin. By custom, the top three jobs are parceled out to the three factions.
Iraqi President Fouad Massoum attends a news conference during the fifth session of the Iraqi Parliament in Baghdad on July 24. (Photo: Ali Abbas, epa)
Last week, Kurdish politician was named the new president of Iraq by Parliament. His selection followed lawmakers' election of a Sunni, , as speaker of Parliament.
Lawmakers have a long way to go before creating a broad government that would lessen tensions among the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, has been widely criticized within his country and the USA for limiting Sunni participation in his government and empowering Shiite militias that have targeted Sunnis during his eight-year rule. Al-Maliki is fighting to stay in office for a new four-year term.
One key to holding Iraq together is convincing the Kurds, who have long sought an independent state, to remain part of the central government. The Obama administration is trying to convince Kurdish leaders to remain part of Iraq.
"Without the Kurds, you're going to have a struggle with all Sunni Arabs against an Iranian-backed Shiite rump state," said James Jeffrey, a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq.
The Kurds have seized on the offensive by the radical Sunnis to further assert their independence. Kurdish forces have occupied territory abandoned by Iraq's army, attempted to sell oil without Baghdad's approval and announced plans for a referendum on independence.
"Division is the only solution, provided that this division should be consensual," said Barzo Ibrahim, a civil engineer in Irbil, in Kurdistan. "This is the most difficult part of the task."
The Kurds have the best chance of survival should they break away from Iraq's central government. They have created an oasis of political stability in the north, fueled by their own oil reserves and protected by one of the most disciplined fighting forces in the region, the peshmerga.
The Kurds have used the crisis to expand their control over oil-rich Kirkuk in the north by taking over positions from Iraq's army when it retreated in the face of attacks from Islamic militants. It's not clear whether the Kurds will withdraw should the crisis subside.
"They are making the most of the current tactical situation," said Mark Kimmit, a retired Army brigadier general and former State Department official with extensive experience in Iraq.
"They achieved on the ground what they were unable to achieve politically, by moving into positions abandoned by the Iraqi security forces," he said.
The Kawergosk Refinery in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. (Photo: Safin Hamed, AFP/Getty Images)
The Kurdish regional government has begun pumping oil from the Kirkuk field into its own network, so it can sell it independently through its pipeline into Turkey, according to the Iraq Oil Report, which covers the industry. Baghdad considers the move illegal.
The Kurds have said Iraq's central government hasn't fulfilled its commitment to support the regional government's budget, leaving the government with no choice but to sell its own oil.
Baghdad still has control over the bulk of Iraq's oil wealth. The Kurdish region produces about 220,000 barrels per day, compared with about 2.6 million in the Shiite south.
The Sunnis, whose power center is in western Iraq, have little in the way of resources to fall back on. Their anger against al-Maliki's Shiite-dominated government has driven many to support the Islamic State.
While the government's forces are in disarray, al-Maliki has turned again to Shiite militias to help provide security, further heightening sectarian tensions.
Iraq has long had sectarian clashes and divisions. The Sunni minority held power for centuries until the United States ousted Saddam, a Sunni. Iraq's mostly Sunni Baath Party, which ruled Iraq for decades, ruthlessly suppressed Shiites and Kurds.
Some Iraqis, such as Omar Mohammed, a dentist in Diyala in eastern Iraq, see a splintered Iraq as the only solution after so many episodes of sectarian bloodshed.
"I would accept any solution to stop the bloodshed," he said, "even if it was a confederation or division."
Contributing: Gilgamesh Nabeel, Ammar Al Shamary and John Dyer in Baghdad and Sumi Somaskanda from Berlin
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The idea of partitioning Iraq is once again getting traction. It may of course happen. But it is not a good idea to pursue it and will not help to stabilize Iraq or Syria. It is a formula for more war, for decades to come.
There are good reasons for the issue to arise. While the press has focused primary attention on the Sunni insurgency against the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the future of the country depends on a third factor: the Kurds. Kurdistan now has most of what it wants: It has taken control of territories that it once disputed, including the oil-producing and symbolically important town of Kirkuk. The Kurds can now produce more revenue from their own oil than they are entitled to from their share of all of Iraq's, at present production volumes.
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Turkey is far less opposed to Kurdistan independence than it once was, because having Muslim, but relatively secular Kurdistan as your southern neighbor is much more attractive even to the Turkish military than living next to the mass murderers associated with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Nor is ISIS a friend of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's Muslim Brotherhood favorites.
But that doesn't settle the matter. Maliki will not accept either the independence of Kurdistan nor the lines the Kurds have drawn as their desired borders. Tehran will back him to the hilt because eastern Kurdistan is in Iran. There is no greater fear for the Islamic Republic of Iran — which isn't much more than half Persian — than unleashing ethnic strife within its own borders. Sooner or later Maliki, with Iranian backing, will go to war to recover as much of Kurdistan as he can. The same is likely to be true of just about any conceivable successor, whether Shiite or Sunni, autocrat or democrat. Many Arab Iraqis are almost as worked up about Kirkuk as Kurds and Turkmen.
Nor will Arab Iraq stay together if Kurdistan succeeds in departing. The Sunnis would get the short end of the stick: Sunnistan with any conceivable borders largely lacks oil. It may have significant quantities of gas, but it will take years and billions of dollars in investment to bring it to market. Shiitestan would be far better off, but just for that reason you can expect Sunnistan not to leave it in peace. Nor will Sunnistan, perhaps unified with the eastern part of Syria to form the much hoped for ISIS caliphate, leave Kurdistan, Turkey or the United States in peace. The Americans will be droning on for years, if not decades.
The reverberations in other parts of the world of partitioning Iraq would also be shattering. It would encourage Russophiles who want eastern Ukraine to secede, not to mention Republika Srpska from Bosnia, Catalonia from Spain, and Scotland from Great Britain.
There is a reason why American diplomats wasted a lot of breath claiming Kosovo was unique due to not only the attempted ethnic cleansing, but also the subsequent United Nations administration under a Security Council mandate that foresaw an eventual political decision on final status. That argument was intended to make it impossible for others to follow suit, in particular Kurdistan, where ethnic cleansing was just as bad as in Kosovo but a U.N. administration under a Security Council mandate was never established.
It is easy to agree to separate. No one will agree on where the separation lines should be drawn. We call the result of armed quarrels over borders "war." We've seen in Palestine how long a partition-originated war can last, though partition of Iraq will likely make the bloodshed and displacement in Palestine, which has been so destructive to the Middle East and to American interests, look like child's play. Think of something more like the India-Pakistan partition, with the numbers proportioned down according to population.
Don't buy the partition of Iraq or Syria. It may be what happens, but Washington should oppose it. The fact that Iran will take the same position doesn't mean it is wrong.
Serwer is a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a scholar at the Middle East Institute. He is the author of Righting the Balance: How You Can Help Protect America (Potomac, 2013). He also blogs at peacefare.net and tweets @DanielSerwer.
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The unfolding chaos in Iraq is fundamentally linked to the historic religious and ethnic enmity among its three major ethnic and religious components. Iraq was created by forcefully merging three semi-autonomous Ottoman provinces of the predominately Kurdish Mosul, the Sunni-Arab Baghdad and the Shi’ite-Arab Basra after World War I. Consequently, its history has been marked with continual sectarian conflicts between Shi’ite and Sunni Arabs, and by Kurdish uprisings for self-determination.
These trends shed light on the need for the long-awaited ethno- religious partition.
The transition from decades of dictatorial rule to the so-called democracy after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath regime has failed to address the underlying ethnic and political issues: The historic Sunni-Shi’ite divide and the Kurds’ aspiration for self-determination.
Today, Iraq is experiencing another bloody war. This time, its Sunni Arabs, with the help of foreign jihadist fighters, have risen under the banner of a most brutal Salafist jihadist terrorist group known as Islamic State (IS). This phenomenon is attributed to the marginalizing and alienating policies of the Shi’ite-led central government.
These trends shed light on the need for the long-awaited ethno- religious partition.
The transition from decades of dictatorial rule to the so-called democracy after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath regime has failed to address the underlying ethnic and political issues: The historic Sunni-Shi’ite divide and the Kurds’ aspiration for self-determination.
Today, Iraq is experiencing another bloody war. This time, its Sunni Arabs, with the help of foreign jihadist fighters, have risen under the banner of a most brutal Salafist jihadist terrorist group known as Islamic State (IS). This phenomenon is attributed to the marginalizing and alienating policies of the Shi’ite-led central government.
On another front, contentious disputes between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Baghdad over disputed areas, hydrocarbon rights and budget have brought the two sides to the brink of war on a number of occasions. Further, the Kurds have threatened to secede from Iraq because of the ongoing economic blockade and restrictions.
Historically, partition has been used to resolve many ethnic or religious conflicts. Most partitions have followed decades of war and bloodshed, making it the most attractive option for bringing peace and stability. Some policy analysts recommend applying the Dayton Accord (The 1995 agreement that ended the bloody ethnic war in the Balkans) as a framework to solve ethnic conflicts around the world.
The advocates of partition argue that it is more humane as the settlement is reached through negotiation rather than war, which saves lives. Some base their argument on the classical Wilsonian notion that “separatist nationalism stems from bad borders and incompatible cultures.”
They assert that depriving ethnic or religious groups of statehood causes unrest.
On the other hand, opponents argue that partition happens in the state of war and intensifies violence. Further, they claim that it could potentially inhibit economic development and that long-term solutions are connected to a state’s emphasis on rule of law, democracy, equal opportunity, resource-sharing and infrastructure development.
However, opinions aside, empirical data supports partition. In a University of California San Diego study, Chapman and Roeder concluded that partition is the best option for nationalist wars compared to unitary states, de facto separation, or autonomy. After evaluating 72 nationalist civil wars between 1945 and 2002, they found that only 14 percent of the partition cases experienced resumption of violence within two years, compared to 63% of unitary states, 50% of de facto separations and 67% of autonomy cases.
The idea of an independent Kurdistan and a Shi’ite-Sunni state with federal regions has strong grounds.
Although Shi’ites and Sunnis have always resented one another’s rule, the nature of their resistance differs from the separatist and nationalistic Kurdish revolts. Most of their conflicts were over control of the country. For instance, when the Ba’ath party took over the country in 1963, 53% of the party members were Shi’ites. Further, in the 2009 elections, Al-Iraqia, a union between the secular Shi’ites and the Sunni minorities, gained the highest number of votes.
In contrast, the impetus behind Kurdish movements has been their aspiration for independence. The unofficial referendum that was conducted in 2004 validates this notion, as Kurds nearly unanimously chose independence over being part of Iraq.
All things considered, Iraq in its current form is a failed state. The notion of preserving the territorial integrity of Iraq will continue to be disastrous. In reality, the country is unofficially partitioned along ethnic and sectarian lines.
Hence, Baghdad and the global leaders must come to terms with this reality.
In essence, KRG’s relative security and stability and its economic and democratic achievements are fundamentally attributed to its semi-independent status − in spite of Baghdad’s deliberate economic blockades and restrictions which is aimed at undermining its accomplishments. With that said, an independent Kurdistan will serve as a model for democracy and coexistence in the Muslim world. Further, it will enable Kurds to more freely engage with the international community and positively contribute to global stability and security.
Moreover, a federal Shi’ite-Sunni Arab state with a weak central authority can address the historic sectarian conflicts between Shi’ite and Sunni Arabs. The right to self-determination will reduce the mutual threat of domination and marginalization. It will also limit foreign intervention and help contain terrorist organizations.
The author, a Kurdish-American from San Diego, California, is the former president of the American Kurdish Council of California and has a master’s degree in global affairs from the University of Denver.
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Former US ambassador to the United Nations on 'Fox News Sunday'. Why John Bolton supports extending NSA surveillance program
This weekend on “Fox News Sunday,” former Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said the Obama administration is losing to ISIS because “they are blinded by their own ideology.”
When asked about President Barack Obama’s claim last week that we are not losing to ISIS in Iraq and Syria Bolton said, “I think they’re in denial. I don’t think that’s anything new. I think they’ve been in denial about the war on terror the last six plus years. They don’t want to admit we are in a war. They would rather treat it as a law enforcement matter. That is palpably wrong. I think their unwillingness to understand the nature of the ideological threats we face from the likes of ISIS, paralyzes their ability to win. And we are losing there is no doubt about it.”
He added, “I think they are blinded by their own ideology. They see this as something that would inevitably lead to more American involvement and they don’t want to do it. They simply will not acknowledge that ISIS is a threat.”
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