We’re still sorting the mess of the missile-downed Malaysia Air 777 over Ukraine… where the sky really fell. But meanwhile, on the ground many miles away, death still stalks other cadres of innocents. Sunni extremists (ISIS), using captured American weapons and hundreds of millions of dollars of looted Iraqi cash, are successfully expanding their quest to establish a brutal caliphate over northern Syria and western Iraq. Other Sunnis have accepted ISIS – for the time being – simply in order to take back control of the Sunni regions of Iraq, over which the majority Shiites have been running roughshod. Among ISIS’ current “partners of convenience, are political Sunni secularists, notably the Baathists that supported the brutal Sunni dictatorship of deposed and executed Saddam Hussein. Rumors abound that Baathists are purportedly assassinating ISIS leaders that cannot tolerate, just as ISIS forces are rounding up dissident Baathists for who knows what.
The ethnic Kurdish part of northern Iraq is taking back oil fields, circling the wagons and acting very much as if they never want to return to that Iraqi state we worked so hard to resurrect as a regional democracy. They despise incumbent (and Shiite) Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who has done little to nothing to appease call for a more neutral, inclusive Iraq, to stem the tide of extremism that has enveloped his country. U.S. Secretary of State has joined a rising chorus demanding or suggesting that al Maliki step aside, just al-Maliki tells the world he expects to stand for re-election for a third time. Shiites may be happy with this position… in the short term…
That he allowed a Sunni moderate Islamist (???) to take the job as speaker of the Iraqi parliament may be way too little, way too late. “But after quickly picking Salim al-Jabouri as speaker, lawmakers argued bitterly for hours over his Shi'ite deputy, suggesting they are still far from a deal on a new government or a decision on the fate of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.” Reuters, July 15th.
The minority Shiite government in Syria and its long-standing ally, the Shiite dominated government of Iran – with Russian (and Iranian) money and military arms (including fighter jets) – have united to support the Shiite-dominated “elected” Iraqi Prime Minister. Shiite militia (some already formed and others rallying to be formed in response to Shiite cleric Ayatollah al-Sistani’s fatwa for Iraqis to fight for their country) have also jointed the battle. Their mission: defeat ISIS.
On Iran’s northeastern side sits a big enemy, profoundly anti-Shiite Taliban, struggling patiently to resume their efforts to re-control Afghanistan and are testing Pakistani forces who have announced their intention to rout the Taliban from their Western Tribal Districts. When Saddam Hussein (Sunni) ruled Iraq and the Taliban controlled Afghanistan (with strong sway over Iran’s other neighbor, Pakistan), Sunni power effectively surrounded and contained the only Islamic Republic in the world, a Shiite powerhouse with extreme hatred for the United States: Iran. When Saddam was toppled by American intervention, the dominant Shiite population elected their own Iraqi government, to the consternation of the minority Sunnis. Iran’s containment crumbled. Iraq became Iran’s puppet government, and Syria’s Assad regime a staunch ally.
With today’s turmoil turning the conflicts back to an effort towards controlling Iranian and Syrian Shiite expansionism, Iran’s quest for regional hegemony has collapsed in this regional mess… what’s not to like? It’s pretty clear that the Geneva-based nuclear arms negotiations between and Iran are going nowhere. With Iran’s Supreme Leader’s recent remarks on the necessity of continuing that nation’s nuclear enrichment program, hopes for a negotiated nuclear settlement seem to be vaporizing. It’s equally clear that the region is and is likely to remain unstable, no matter the regional political and religious configurations. Islamic turmoil rages from the Boko Haram insurrection in northern Nigeria to the battles to contain Uighurs in Western China. We are not going to see stability in this region any time in the foreseeable future.
As Israel and Sunni-Palestinian Hamas in Gaza pound each other with murderous ferocity, as Israeli forces crosss into Gaza to seize a passel of rocket launching sites, hell-bent on eliminating the networks of border tunnels used to import rockets or infiltrate Israel, we see evidence of this horrific clash of cultures. Ceasefires fail, and you have to ask yourself if Hamas actually wants Gaza civilians to perish; their corpses make great posters for international sympathy and recruitment of more extremists. Israel won’t have the same “opportunity”; their Iron Dome anti-rocket force has been highly effective. Disgusting. Moderate Muslims are completely frustrated and terrified of the killings outside their front doors; they want nothing more than to be left alone to live their lives without fear. Israeli parents make the same protests. Hard to believe that this time Israel isn’t going all the way into Gaza. Bad goes to worse. Worse goes to much, much worse.
Muslim extremists have seized upon two powerful emotional forces: the almost two century humiliation of the Islamic world by Western colonial and economic powers and the failure of modern economic success to filter down to the average citizens in the area (being scooped up instead by the ugly Western-supported dictators at the top of the food chain). Fundamentalist Islam, Shiite and Sunni, addresses the failures of the temporal world with promises of an afterlife based on extreme piety and identifies the targets for the mandatory jihad charge to the faithful.
While is hard to dissociate the slaughter of innocents, the brutality of mass killings, the collateral casualties of indiscriminate shelling and rocket fire and the decimation of farms, cities, businesses and a way of life for too many caught in the cross-fire, it is equally apparent to those who understand the region that there is one huge target, once the Great Satan against which al Qaeda fighters could prove their abilities, notably absent from the center of the action: the United States of America. By embroiling ourselves into this battlefield again, we would attract even more anti-Western Islamic militants ready to test their devotion in a direct head-to-head confrontation with the King of the Hill.
Washington is certainly aware of the risks. “In short, the marriages of convenience formed among ISIS and Baathists, Sunni nationalists, Sunni tribal groups and Sunni jihadists to fight a common enemy — the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki — are coming under strain. Those fissures are being watched closely as the United States military’s Central Command is expected to deliver to the Pentagon this week a classified report on whether Iraq’s shattered security forces can rally to combat the threat.
“Exploiting any rifts among the Sunni militants is a top priority for American and Iraqi officials and their regional allies… The United States has weighed sending former American officials to meet with Sunni tribal leaders. Ideally, the United States would try to re-create the Sunni Awakening alliances formed in 2007 that had nearly 100,000 Sunni tribal fighters to combat an earlier incarnation of ISIS. But these efforts are still very much in their infancy, officials said. At the same time, Saudi Arabia has reportedly urged Sunni tribes to turn against ISIS.
“The Sunni insurgent groups are not widespread in each province and, by their nature, are small — whereas tribes are dispersed throughout provinces and even across provincial borders. In many ways, the biggest opportunity to foment an uprising is with the tribes since they have the sheer manpower that could be harnessed to face down ISIS…
“But there is a strong feeling among many tribal leaders that if they fight against ISIS before the government commits to replacing Mr. Maliki and offering a new deal to Sunnis, they will lose out and help the government but not get any political compromise.” New York Times, July 12th. There is no place for our usual knee-jerk reactions. Sloganeering politicians on both sides of the aisle need to clam up and let the experts sort this out. What’s more, exactly how much money are we prepared to divert from desperately-needed domestic programs once against the big target drawing Middle Eastern focus? Our track record in this region is abysmal, and I am being polite. Show me the clear path we can take that will assure regional stability?
I’m Peter Dekom, and in this complex and volatile amalgamation of competing interests, this is one arena for which unprepared amateur opinions are less than relevant.
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