For optimists on settling down the Iraqi civil war, the news is anything but good. And while a new nation – the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (“Levant” if you prefer in lieu of “Syria”) – might be able to be able to be formed (across northern Syria all the way to Baghdad), it is still likely to face internecine struggles from rather divergent Sunni factions (ranging from Baathist secularists to ISIS and Islamic Jihad militants) for years to come. For the West, having a Sunni equivalent of Shiite Iran, a new base for global terrorism, is not exactly good news. For the Shiite world, particularly Iran, it is a natural enemy that increases pressures for developing a nuclear deterrent. ISIS is slaughtering Shiites wherever they find them.
During the American/NATO occupation of Iraq, we built massive walls to separate Sunni enclaves from growing Shiite sections in Baghdad. They probably saved a lot of Sunni lives in a city dominated by the Shiite-centric al-Maliki government. But now, amidst a frenzy to muster Shiite militias to counter the ISIS insurgency, these walled neighborhoods are increasingly becoming inescapable cages to hold Sunnis to be dealt with later (or now?) by angry Shiites bent on killing.
As the United States is not providing the immediate airstrikes PM Nouri al-Maliki has requested, instead pressuring him to remedy his past purely pro-Shiite policies and create an inclusive government including Sunnis, he simply has balked. Instead, he has used ISIS threats to decimate Iraqi Shiite religious sites to enlist significant military aid from Iran. Even as the United States is back-channeling with Iran, it has warned regional players that they should stay out of the Iraqi conflict.
Meanwhile, considering the possibility of airstrikes and drone-strikes, the United States has sent a few hundred military advisors into Iraq to assess the risks. Preliminary reports have suggested the difficulty of “surgical strikes” against ISIS targets without causing serious collateral death and destruction to civilians interlaced with the invading army. “The Obama administration’s embrace of targeted killings using armed drones risks putting the United States on a ‘slippery slope’ into perpetual war and sets a dangerous precedent for lethal operations that other countries might adopt in the future, according to a report by a bipartisan panel that includes several former senior intelligence and military officials.” New York Times, June 25th. Increasingly, polls of American voters are showing an increasing disapproval of any further U.S. involvement in Iraq.
While our inane invasion of Iraq in 2003 may have destabilized the region, the underlying tensions are unlikely to be peacefully resolved anytime soon. There is no short-term fix. And the above-noted report is anything but flattering to America’s use of drone-strikes and other counter-terrorism policies to date: “‘There is no indication that a U.S. strategy to destroy Al Qaeda has curbed the rise of Sunni Islamic extremism, deterred the establishment of Shia Islamic extremist groups or advanced long-term U.S. security interests,’ the report concludes.” NY Times.
Meanwhile, Iran’s involvement is clearly escalating, with a clear statement that they will do anything in their power to stop the threatened ISIS destruction of Shiite holy shrines. Is the United States simply looking the other way – wink, wink – as Iran escalates its support for the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad? “Iran is directing surveillance drones over Iraq from an airfield in Baghdad and is supplying Iraqi forces with tons of military equipment and other supplies, according to American officials.
“The secret Iranian programs are a rare instance in which Iran and the United States share a near-term goal: countering the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, the Sunni militants who have seized towns and cities in a blitzkrieg across western and northern Iraq. But even as the two nations provide military support to the embattled government of Prime Minister Nouri Kamal al-Maliki, they are watching each other’s actions warily as they jostle for influence in the region.” NY Times. Clearly, no matter what happens in Iraq, it cannot be good news for American policy-makers. Europe, still reeling from the Russian threats against Ukraine, seems to be sitting on the sidelines to let us deal with this “blowback” from our missteps in the earlier Iraq War.
“‘From our point of view, we’ve made it clear to everyone in the region that we don’t need anything to take place that might exacerbate the sectarian divisions that are already at a heightened level of tension,’ [U.S. Secretary of State John] Kerry said… Both the United States and Iran have small numbers of military advisers in Iraq. As many as 300 American commandos are being deployed to assess Iraqi forces and the deteriorating security situation, while about a dozen officers from Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force have been sent to advise Iraqi commanders and to help mobilize more than 2,000 Shiites from southern Iraq, American officials say.
“‘Iran is likely to be playing somewhat of an overarching command role within the central Iraqi military apparatus, with an emphasis on maintaining cohesiveness in Baghdad and the Shia south and managing the reconstitution of Shia militias,’ said Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar.
“Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the head of [Iran’s] Quds Force, has paid at least two visits to Iraq to help Iraqi military advisers plot strategy. And Iranian transport planes have been making twice-daily flights to Baghdad with military equipment and supplies, 70 tons per flight, for the Iraqi forces.” NY Times.
President Obama is asking Congress for half a billion dollars to be used to train and supply rebels in Syria who oppose both the Syrian Assad regime and ISIS. Let the games begin. To make matters worse, even if Iraq were to be separated into its three seemingly natural divisions – Kurds, Sunnis, & Shiites – the deep divisions even within those communities are unlikely to settle and create that ultimate “peaceful” solution. Battles to control oil and water suggest that there are even more reasons to expect continued regional conflicts. Most Iraqis understand the problems that partition might bring.
“… Iraq and Syria’s potential fragmentation along sectarian or ethnic lines is not likely to offer any solution to the region’s dysfunction, analysts say, and may well generate new conflicts driven by ideology, oil, and other resources… For the most part, Iraqis (with the exception of the Kurds) reject the idea of partition, according to recent interviews and opinion polls taken several years ago. In that sense, Iraq forms a striking contrast with the former Yugoslavia, where militias worked consciously from the start to carve out new and ethnically exclusive national enclaves. The sectarian strain may have led to Iraq’s current impasse, but it coexists with other sources of regional and ideological solidarity, some deeply rooted in history.
“Partly for that reason, many analysts say, the current division of Iraq — while it may prove irreversible in the end — does not represent a return to a more authentic or harmonious dispensation, nor is it likely to better address the Middle East’s sources of political and social failure.” New York Times, June 26th.
Tell me exactly what the United States can do to make the situation in the region any better? One way or another, given our past failed efforts in Iraq, we are going to be blamed for what is happening and what will happen, but whatever we may do now has no serious path to predictable stability. One way or another, Muslim extremists will push to expand their power in the region. Exactly how much we should spend on an irreconcilable schisms “over there” versus our dire needs on the domestic front?
Our stupid, under-thought policies of more than a decade ago seem to have supported, not defeated, the growth of Islamic extremists… giving fundamentalist recruiters a really specific villain to encourage passionate and angry Muslims, giving them a focus to vent their rage. We need to understand that nothing we do at this point will stop the violence, and the anger at our actions will continue unabated for some time to come. It is bad and will get worse no matter what we do.
I’m Peter Dekom, and we need to be mindful that most of the assumptions we have made about this part of the world have been wrong, dead wrong.
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