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Sunni and
Shiite Muslims march together in Baghdad, Iraq. A
majority of Iraqis identify with their national
identity.
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As
the United States tries to maintain order in post-Saddam Iraq,
much is being made of the ethnic and sectarian rivalries between
the Sunni Arab, Shiite Arab, and Sunni Kurd elements within the
country. Partly because Washington has blamed much of the
violence in Iraq on Sunni Arabs, and because many believe Iraqis
are more tied to their ethnicity and religion rather than their
national identity, there have been calls to divide Iraq into
three separate states: the north would become the Kurdish state,
the center would be Sunni Arab, and Shiite would govern the
south. At first, one might assume that the so-called “Three
State Solution” would yield positive results for Iraq.
However, under closer scrutiny, the “Three State Solution”
reveals itself to be quite dangerous.
Following
World War I and the dismantlement of the Ottoman Empire, the
three Turkish provinces of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul were placed
under British administration. In 1921, Britain helped transform
the provinces into a new Iraqi kingdom, headed by King Faisal I.
It is this fateful decision more than 80 years ago that is
fueling today’s argument of undoing the creation of Iraq and
transforming the country into three separate states.
There
are a number of flaws in this approach.
Opposition
to US militarism and the war on Iraq bega well before the
birth of the WMD juggernaut. |
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The
most tangible flaw is that Iraq has long been a secular country,
where a majority of citizens identify with their national
identity, rather than their ethnic or religious identity. The
different ethnicities associate with each other, and while the
three main ethnic groups are largely located in separate spheres
of the country, they are also very intermixed. Baghdad, for
example, is extremely diverse.
This
composition explains why successive Iraqi leaders have been
nationalist leaders, rather than religious or ethnic like so
many of Iraq’s neighbors. By offering a collective will to the
people, and crushing any organized opposition to this system,
leaders since 1921 have been able to preserve Iraq’s
territorial integrity and prevent ethnic fissures from forming.
It
must be said, however, that while Sunni and Shiite Arabs were
largely behind the secular, Iraqi state, the same cannot be said
for the Kurds in the north. Unlike the Kurds, Iraqi Sunni and
Shiite Arabs share a common identity and have supported
successive Iraqi leaders who have emphasized pan-Arabism. The
Kurds never fit into this category, which elucidates their
frequent attempts at independent statehood.
Kurdish
nationalism has existed since the creation of the Iraqi state.
After the fall of the Ottoman Empire with the Treaty of Sèvres,
an independent Kurdish state was to be established. Instead, the
Treaty of Lausanne, which superseded Sèvres, was passed in
1923. Lausanne ignored the Kurdish issue, which led to massive
rebellion by the Kurds in southern Turkey. The Turkish
government, in what would become a theme in the 20th century,
crushed the Kurdish revolt by launching aerial attacks,
bombarding its cities and using chemical weapons.
In
the 1960s, Kurdish nationalism in
Iraq
became more powerful, with Mustafa Al-Barzani leading a pack of
Kurdish tribes in a revolt against Baghdad. In 1975, with the support of
Iran
– which had antagonistic relations with
Iraq
at the time – the Kurds attempted to liberate themselves from
Iraqi control and establish autonomy. This attempt, like the
others, failed when Baghdad refused to accept their demands and when their former allies,
the Iranians, withdrew their support and instead began
assassinating Kurdish leaders in an attempt to weaken the
Kurdish nationalist movement.
Kurdish
unity – and historical brush-ups with independent statehood
– explains why they have traditionally encountered difficulty
assimilating into the national identity of the various states in
the region, to which Iraq is no exemption. Nevertheless, other
than the Kurds in the north, Sunni Arab, Shiite Arab, Kurd and
other ethnicities have largely been tolerant of each other and
recognize their common national identity.
The
other important flaw in the “Three State Solution” is the
notion that dividing Iraq into three separate states would not
drastically alter the balance of power in the region. Presently,
a potent Iraq has prevented its five powerful surrounding states
– Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran – from
clashing. Other than the Iran-Iraq war throughout the decade of
the 80s – which ended with little change in the region’s
dynamics – the five countries in question have been able to
preserve their territorial integrity by maintaining their
military power. Slicing into pieces the heart of this
geostrategic arrangement could unbalance the entire Middle East
and, in the coming decades, create conditions of perpetual
conflict.
A
weak and divided Iraq – possessing extensive supplies of oil
– would tempt its neighbors.
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By
dividing a strong
Iraq
into three separate states, there would be no resistance to
interventions from the neighboring powers. A weak and divided
Iraq
– possessing extensive supplies of oil – would tempt its
neighbors. If this were to occur,
Turkey
and
Iran
, especially, would likely meddle in the domestic affairs of the
new Iraqi states, each for their own unique purposes.
Turkey
, on the one hand, would claim it needed to protect its ethnic
Turkmen population, which resides in northern
Iraq
, from the Kurdish rulers. The Iranians, on the other hand,
would claim a special religious unity with the new Shiite state,
since Shiite leaders would then rule both countries. Both of
these claims would simply act as cover for Ankara’s and Tehran’s attempts at increased influence in the focal point of the
Middle East
.
Any
involvement by
Turkey
in northern
Iraq
would be certain to lead to war between Kurdish militants and
the Turkish military. If this situation were to develop, it
would add instability to the oil supply since so much of
Iraq
’s oil comes from northern
Iraq
; this fact alone explains why outside powers such as the
United States
would be against such a circumstance.
Closer
Iranian unity with southern
Iraq
is a serious concern in Washington, explaining why the
US
supported
Iraq
for part of the Iran-Iraq war, and is one reason why, following
the Gulf War in 1991, former
US
President George H. W. Bush allowed Saddam to forcefully quell
the Shiite uprising. Like northern
Iraq
, southern
Iraq
is littered with oil fields; if these were to fall into Iranian
hands, it would greatly improve Tehran’s economic bargaining power.
Finally,
and perhaps the most obvious flaw in the “Three State
Solution,” the question remains of what is to become of
central
Iraq
. Nearly all of
Iraq
’s oil wealth is concentrated in the northern and southern
parts of the country. Because of this, successive Iraqi leaders
have redistributed the wealth generated in the north and south
to the center.
If
Iraq
is divided into three states, how will central
Iraq
– which is considered the most Sunni Arab populated part of
the country – survive? Furthermore, while
Iraq
’s surrounding states will likely intervene in the country
once it is broken up, it is just as likely that both the
northern and southern new states of
Iraq
will intrude into the center state. Central Iraq, short of
resources, would probably be unable to defend itself against
such a scenario.
Therefore,
the division of
Iraq
would likely fail for numerous reasons, the first being the
difficulty in challenging prominent nationalist feelings, and
the second being the powder keg of conflict that such a
separation would ignite. Because of the former, it is unlikely
that such a division would take place. However, the longer that
there is anarchy in
Iraq
, the greater the possibility that Iraqis will lose their
national identity and begin to identify with more tangible
bonds, such as their religious identity. This outcome would sow
the seeds for ethnic violence, and even ethnic cleansing,
something not yet experienced in
Iraq
on a major scale. If religious and ethnic bonds were to become
strong enough, supplanting Iraqis’ nationalist leanings, then
there is a real possibility that the “Three State Solution”
will become a reality.
Erich
Marquardt is an analyst with the Power
and Interest News Report (PINR).
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