It must be difficult to do an
analysis of a policy issue when your ideology ties both hands behind your back,
to say nothing of your brain.
Bret Stephens’s, “Iraq Tips Towards the Abyss,” in The Wall Street Journal, October 22, 2013, Opinion, is one such case. Mr. Stephens
meticulously records the carnage in Iraq for the past two months, and clearly
notes the absence of the international community’s concern. But then, he
substitutes ideology, i.e. inveterate interventionism, for
reason.
One of the
great failing of the Bush Administration, and specifically its National
Security Advisor and later Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and later still the
Obama Administration and its Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, was that
they did not recognize the divisions within Iraq. And, therefore, did not have
an intelligent plan of what to do in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was removed.
The inability
to fashion a sensible accord between Iraq’s three sectarian groups, resulted in
immediate and ongoing violence. The more
sensible strategy for Iraq would have been to partition the country into three entities: Kurdish (Mosul); Sunni (Baghdad); and Shi’a (Basra).
First, there is
no compelling historic justification for modern day Iraq. The 1919 Paris Peace
Conference and subsequent San Remo Conference in April 1920 laid the groundwork
for an Iraqi nation. Prior to 1919, modern day Iraq did not exist. There was no
Iraqi nationalism and no Iraqi identity. There was what the British called
“Mesopotamia” - referring to the Ottoman Empire’s provinces of Mosul, Baghdad
and Basra.
Second, it is understood that the reconfiguration of Iraq will cause consternation to some.
However, the entire Middle East has skin in the game, and none more so than
Turkey and Iran. A Kurdistan nation will not be the death of Turkey. It will however
be a stable force in an unstable region. An accommodation to the Kurds would
work toward balancing and even mitigating Iran’s position in Iraq, especially
under Nouri al–Maliki, the Shi’a Prime Minister
Third, Mr. Stephens’s view that
Mr. al-Maliki is a stabilizing force in Iraq is just wrong. Recall Mr. al
Maliki’s first acts when American forces left Iraq. He attempted to arrest the Sunni leadership for trumped up capital charges. Mr. al-Maliki is an Iranian Shi’a puppet. Reducing Shi’a dominance to
southern Iraq will correspondingly reduce Iran’s influence in the region.
Fourth, al
Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) is not the dominating force portrayed in Mr. Stephen’s
piece. Iraq’s Sunni and former Baathists are more than happy to let al Qaeda
suicide bombers blow up Shi’a and themselves. When sectarian violence turns to
civil war, it will be Sunni Baathists that exert control and govern in central
Iraq, not al Qaeda.
Iraq is an
artificial State. To believe that Kurds, Sunni, and Shi’a can live peacefully
together contradicts realty. Just as Bosnia became a failed state when Muslims,
Serbs, and Croatians were provided with the means to choose the conditions
under which they wished to live, which you will recall resulted in War
(1992 – 1995).
A solution to
Iraqi violence is to construct a new compact. That new compact will be the
partition of Iraq into three distinct States.
The failure in Iraq was not military defeat, but diplomatic malpractice.
The failure in Iraq was not military defeat, but diplomatic malpractice.
