Out of sight, Iraq breaks up in three

By eKurd.net

Iraq has long been a religious, ethnic and ideological mosaic difficult to rule as a united entity, and Saddam Hussein's removal did little to change that.

In 1919, there were no Iraqi people. History, religion and geography pulled the people apart, not together.

Basra looked south, towards India and the Gulf, Baghdad had strong links with Persia [Iran], and Mosul had closer ties with Syria.

And the current war in Syria, Iraq’s next-door neighbor, has helped reignite the Sunnite-led insurgency in northern and western Iraq, especially in Mosul and the Anbar Province.

Gunmen yesterday killed two soldiers, injured another and kidnapped three more in Anbar after seven protesters were shot dead and 60 others injured by army gunfire in Fallujah.

The attacks on soldiers came as mourners buried the Sunnite protesters felled a day earlier.

The army said the protesters were trying to cut off an international highway linking Iraq with neighboring Jordan and Syria.

The tit for tat killings in Anbar Province, which makes up roughly one-third of Iraq's territory, are the first since mass protests against the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki began five weeks ago in Baghdad and western Iraq.

A demonstration followed the burials during which protesters shouted: “Listen Maliki, we are free people” and “Take your lesson from Bashar,” a reference to Syria’s embattled President Bashar al-Assad.

The protesters accuse Maliki of being “Iran’s man in Iraq” and his government of discriminating against Sunnite Arabs, saying they are treated as second-class citizens.

Their leaders’ demands range from Maliki's removal to the release of hundreds of women detainees and the suspension of an anti-terrorism law that Sunnites believe has been abused by authorities to target their sect unfairly.

The Sunnite protests broke out in December after Finance Minister Rafei el-Essawi's bodyguards and staff were detained on terrorism charges. Sunni leaders saw the arrests as part of a sustained crackdown on their sect by Iraq's Shiite leadership.

In December 2011, another crisis erupted after Maliki sought the arrest of Sunnite Vice-President Tariq el-Hashemi, accused by the prime minister of running death squads. He fled the country and was later sentenced to death in absentia.

Complicating the attempts to ease Sunnite protests, the government -- made up of Shiite, Sunnite and Kurdish blocs -- is also caught in a standoff over oil with autonomous Kurdistan in the north.

Abdelghani Ali Yehya

Abdelghani Ali Yehya, a Kurdish political analyst and prominent writer who heads the Journalists Union of Kurdistan, says today’s Iraq has already “splintered in three, but out of sight.”

In his think piece for the leading Saudi daily Asharq Alawsat, he begins by quoting from a memo written by Iraq’s King Faisal, the first (1921- 1933) monarch in the country’s modern era.

The 1925 memo was addressed to a commission mandated by the League of Nations to look into a dispute over the Mosul region between Turkey and the British protectorate of Iraq.

"Heartbrokenly,” King Faisal wrote, “I can say there is no Iraqi people yet, but only deluded human groups void of any national idea. Iraq is one of those countries lacking the fabric of social life – namely intellectual, denominational and religious unity."

Yehya says King Faisal was right. Since its inception in 1921, the Iraqi state has not ceased being challenged.

In August 1933, for example, it had to brutally repress a revolt in Dohuk Province by the Assyrian Christians of northern Iraq.

The 1935–1936 Iraqi Shiite revolts in the mid-Euphrates region against the Sunnite dominated authority of the Kingdom of Iraq followed.

Parallel revolts also broke out that year in chiefly-Kurdish northern Iraq.

In October 1935, the Iraqi government crushed yet another revolt by the Yazidi Kurds of Jabal Sinjar.

The Yazidis of Jabal Sinjar constituted the majority of Iraq’s Yazidi population -- the second largest non-Muslim minority within the kingdom, and the largest heterodox Kurdish group in the province of Mosul.

In 1939, the region of Jabal Sinjar was once again put under military control, together with the Shekhan District.

Yehya says persecution of Iraq’s minorities precipitated the schism between its Arab and ethnic Kurdish components.

It came in the wake of the Kurds’ 1991 uprisings, which culminated in the West’s establishment of no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq and the Kurds’ creation of the Kurdish Autonomous Republic in an area of Iraqi Kurdistan.

As the years passed, the Kurds could no longer remain under the authority of a central government, thus fulfilling the first two-way partition of Iraq, says Yehta.

The three-way breakup started after the 2003 fall of Saddam’s Sunnite-led Baathist regime and its replacement by a chiefly Shiite administration.

The ethnic and sectarian cleansing of Kurds, Christians, Shiites and Yazidis by extremist Sunnite factions started that same year.

Some Shiite militias in turn began cleansing Sunnites in Baghdad and the southern provinces. Thousands of Iraq’s Arab Sunnites were driven to Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Kurdistan and elsewhere.

Mutual cleansing by the two sides, Yehya explains, eventually carved Iraq’s exclusively Arab Sunnite region.

The idea of dividing Iraq in three gained significant momentum over the past 10 years, specially after then Sen. Joe Biden – the incumbent U.S. vice president – embraced it in 2006.

Biden's so-called soft-partition plan -- a variation of the blueprint dividing up Bosnia in 1995 -- called for dividing Iraq into three semi-autonomous regions, held together by a central government.

There would be a loose Kurdistan, a loose Shia-stan and a loose Sunni-stan, all under a big, if weak, Iraq umbrella.

"The idea, as in Bosnia, is to 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," Biden and Leslie H. Gelb wrote in their opinion piece for The New York Times on May 1, 2006. "We could drive this in place with irresistible sweeteners for the Sunnis to join in, a plan designed by the military for withdrawing and redeploying American forces, and a regional nonaggression pact."

Yehya says much as past Iraqi governments cracked down on Kurds, Maliki has now taken the foolhardy step of closing the Jordanian-Iraqi crossing at Trebil in order to strangle Anbar economically.

Adding to the three-way partition fuel are the pro-Maliki demonstrations in the Shiite provinces.

“If Iraqi Kurdistan is semi-independent and the Sunnite Triangle is fenced in and shut out, it means the three-way breakup has become a fait accompli,” writes Yehya.

“It also means partition in the minds has translated into partition on the ground. Either an Iraqi Gorbachev comes next to institutionalize the breakup smoothly or we enter into an unpleasant cycle of creative chaos, catastrophes, killings and bloodshed.”

Talking virtual reality after Assad’s exit

Syria activists documented 20,356 violent deaths in the uprising by July 18

This is my paraphrasing of a figurative think piece by Saudi mass media celebrity Jamal Khashoggi. It appears in Arabic today in the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat

Jamal Khashoggi

Imagine this:

Before long, Middle East leaders awaken one morning and find the Middle East without Bashar al-Assad and Syria welcoming them with open arms.

The new reality, with all its opportunities, risks and challenges, dawns on them.The regime imploded without their direct intervention. Their security advisers had told them to stay out of the fray for fear of repercussions at home. They were told the Syrians could fend for themselves. So they funded and pseudo-armed the opposition groups and granted them freedom of movement.

But regional leaders are worried about the state of post-Assad Syria. The breakup of the regular armed forces saw members defect to the Free Syrian Army (FSA) or lay down arms and rejoin their tribes for protection. Only the armed forces’ Alawites organized an orderly retreat with their armaments to their villages and mountain strongholds – a great cause of concern for new-Syria’s prospects.

The Syrian army did not stage the semblance of a coup like in Tunisia or keep the country whole and put up with the revolution as in Egypt.

The opposition in turn failed to unify the FSA, which remains without a command and control (management) so it can inherit the ministry of defense and other security agencies. Their staffs are also considered enemies of the revolution.

Restructuring the Syrian army and its various branches is the most daunting task facing new-Syria’s leaders who remain divided between those in the Syrian National Council (SNA) claiming legitimacy and calling for a meeting of national forces to be held within days in Syria’s parliament and heads of other opposition groups objecting.

The head of state of one of the regional countries destined to groom Syrian affairs is perturbed.

He wonders, “How can we unite them? Is it a task the Arab League can handle?”

The fight with the Alawites is not over. Some of them are still resisting.

There is the risk of Syria’s Sunnites seeking revenge against Alawites for the series of atrocities and mass massacres committed against them.

The anxious head of state wakes up early the next morning to hear the newsreader saying Syria had a troubled night. Joy over the regime’s fall was mixed with concern about the future.

The head of state ponders; “What can we do? Send in our army? Sending in our troops is not politically correct. The SNA and local leaders promised to protect the Alawite minority. Hopefully, they will keep their word and the Syrians will restrain their anger.”

This restless head of state’s concern is not for love of the Alawites but for fear of some of their lot emigrating and sheltering in his homeland. He is also worried about unending unrest in Syria.

Syria is not Egypt. Change there won’t be internal only -- it will spill over.

There are several hundred thousand Syrians residing in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.

Some of them will return to their country of origin for the first time. Most of them are supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. They had left Syria during the movement’s clash with the regime in the Seventies and Eighties. Their homecoming would boost the Muslim Brotherhood’s chances in future national elections.

Jordan and the Gulf partners won’t be troubled by the departure of Syrian expatriates since their economic are all afflicted by high rates of unemployment.

Rich Syrians won’t join the exodus home. They would probably stay in the host countries and serve as bridges to the new-Syria.

Would Syria’s return to the Arab fold and the opening of its doors to its neighbors breathe new life into the “Greater Syria” concept?

Most probably it won’t.

States and borders won’t change. There would be no place today for al-Sham al-Kabir or a Greater Lebanon. That’s all part of history now.

What we would see is Syria returning to its natural geographic and political environment and to a market economy where Syrians shine.

We would also see Syria reopening its borders with its neighbors.

Aleppo and northern Syria could become an extension of the Turkish economy.

Mutual Jordanian, Syrian and Lebanese interests would conjoin with Saudi Arabia’s.

Post-Assad, borders between Jordan and Syria will melt away completely, if only for humanitarian reasons. But Jordan would have to tread carefully. There are loads of arms around in Syria, including chemical weapons.

Saudi Arabia would need to keep a watchful eye on Lebanon.

Lebanese Sunnites would be celebrating Assad’s exit passionately. That would upset a component of the Maronite community and rekindle apprehensions of the Greater Syria idea. But the negative reaction would be chiefly vocal.

The fear, however, is of Hezbollah’s response. Hezbollah is agitated already. As a wounded tiger, it would want to prove to the Sunnite “victors” that the party is still strong despite losing Syria.

So better let Hezbollah swallow the bitter pill gradually. At the end of the day, the party would acknowledge the magnitude of its loss and change course accordingly.

Nevertheless, this would require Saudi Arabia to keep Sunnites on a leash, preventing them from provoking Hezbollah, and to remind the party calmly that the kingdom is the next powerbroker in Lebanon.

Trounced in Syria, Iran would want to ward off a Sunnite and contagious Arab Spring by consolidating its hold on Iraq.

Tehran’s tactless support of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his government is liable to offend Iraq’s Sunnites who would eagerly team up with their Syrian counterparts.

Iraq’s Sunnites would be rejoicing at first and then planning to regain their clout.

Here again, a power struggle is looming – one that could perhaps enable Saudi Arabia to shut out Iran from Iraq. But will the United States help the kingdom do that?

Iraq’s Kurds would join such endeavor. They would also have found a new (Kurdish) expanse for them in Syria.

Syria’s Kurds won greater rights and full citizenship rights in the campaign to push out Assad. They look forward to the kind of prosperity enjoyed by their kinfolk in Iraq. Economic benefits could draw Iraq’s Kurds closer to a new Sunnite regional order based on public freedoms and a market economy.  Such benefits could entice them to break with fundamentalist Shiite parties and help build a new, democratic Iraq.

It is still too early to envisage the Muslim Brothers winning national elections, forming a government and hammering out a new constitution in the new-Syria as in Egypt. But they will have a bee in their bonnet, which could embolden their Jordanian opposite numbers and thus pose a challenge for Amman.