|
|
Follow the Middle East Forum
|
|
|
Please take a moment to
visit and log in at the subscriber
area, and submit your city & country location. We will use this
information in future to invite you to any events that we organize in
your area.
Iraq
Needs Unity, Not Partition
  Be the first of
your friends to like this.
Amid the chaos in Iraq as major cities fall under Sunni insurgent
offensives spearheaded by the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham (ISIS),
it is tempting to call for partitioning into separate Shi'a, Sunni and
Kurdish region. Quite simply, as Steven A.
Cook states, "The country no longer makes sense to the people
who live there." Yet hopes for any kind of stability under such an
arrangement are deeply mistaken.
Partition plans have evolved, from Joe Biden's 2006 proposal to
federalize Iraq and create autonomous regions, to today's calls for the
complete dissolution of the state and the establishment of fully
independent factional powers. But partition will not lead to self-rule
and stability in Iraq, rather it will provide ISIS with a haven in which
it can subjugate the local population and plan further conquests.
The foremost problem with dividing Iraq is that the Sunni insurgency
that has taken over vast areas in the country's north and west is
dominated by ISIS, whose territorial ambitions extend far beyond the
Sunni Arab majority areas in those regions. On the contrary, ISIS aspires
to conquer all of Iraq, and to expand its territory in the surrounding
Levant states as the beginnings of a transnational
Caliphate.
It is true that Sunni insurgent groups such as the Naqshbandi Army,
Jaysh al-Mujahideen and Jamaat Ansar al-Islam have played important roles
in Iraq's insurgency (indeed I have documented them at length here,
here,
here
and here,
well before most media outlets began following them after the fall of
Mosul and Tikrit). But the reality is that ISIS has spearheaded the
majority of advances into new territory, and it is mostly ISIS asserting
authority in the areas falling out of government control.
Like ISIS, the other members of the Sunni insurgency, including the
Baathist groups, seek the ultimate overthrow of the central government.
Their aims are rooted in the belief that Sunni Arabs constitute a
demographic plurality and even majority in Iraq and are entitles to
regain rule over the country.
Nor are the problems with partitioning Iraq limited to how such an
outcome would play out in the country's Sunni areas.
A Shi'a region would also be problematic, prone to becoming a rump
client state of Iran. Indeed, for comparison, one should note how Iran
has already long sought to build
its influence on pro-autonomy trends in Basra, the Shia stronghold
and port city in Iraq's south. In Basra, Iranian proxy militias, such as Asa'ib
Ahl al-Haq, became entrenched and untouchable powers over the course
of 2012 and 2013.
In any case, just as the majority of the Sunni insurgent groups
ultimately seek the overthrow of the central government, Shi'a factions
in a divided state would pursue the same restoration of national power.
Regardless of Iranian influence, Shia groups in Iraq still believe in a
concept of Iraqi nationalism. Such groups would not be satisfied with
having their power limited to Shi'a-dominated southern areas and would
strive to reunify the country under their own rule.
Besides, the model of a Sunni-Shi'a partition would still leave
unsolved the many ethnically mixed Sunni-Shi'a areas of Diyala (where a
Kurdish component is also notable) and Salah ad-Din provinces, unless one
wishes to posit a substantial amount of ethnic cleansing in these places.
Even in Kurdistan, which has prospered under autonomy, the full
breakup of Iraq would have negative consequences.
A fully independent Kurdistan, without a national government in
Baghdad, will be almost wholly dependent on Turkey. This arrangement will
create intra-Kurdish conflict across borders, with Kurdish areas of
Syria, to which Turkey maintains broad hostility, opposing the Turkish
client state in Iraq's Kurdistan.
Only a policy of national unity can eventually bring true stability
throughout Iraq. To begin with, Iraq needs national level emergency
measures: reform of the security forces to curb sectarianism and heavy
handed practices; outreach to improve local cooperation with government,
and end to the discrimination against Sunni Iraqis who must be
reintegrated into the country's political and economic life if it is to
survive as a unified nation.
Ultimately, Iraq needs to end the sectarian politics that allocated
power based on personal and group loyalties with little regard to
competency and the needs of the population. Partition along sectarian
lines – de facto or official – addresses none of these fundamental
problems that have impeded the country's great potential.
Chaotic as the state of Iraq is right now, simply proceeding with the
current course of events for a de facto three-way partition is not the
way to achieve stability. In fact, partition may lead to substantial
ethnic cleansing and economic and societal collapse for the Sunni Arab areas
in particular.
Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi is a student at Brasenose College, Oxford
University, and a Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
|
|
|
|
|
No comments:
Post a Comment