''Iraq's Slide Toward Separation''

[nosmokes]

Power and Interest News Report (PINR)

http://www.pinr.com
[e-mail]
------------------------------

August 11, 2004:

To see a past analysis from January explaining the side effects that would be caused by a separation of Iraq, visit the following analysis:

''Division of Iraq Would Likely Breed Regional Instability''
http://www.pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report&report_id=140

------------------------------

''Iraq's Slide Toward Separation''
Drafted by Dr. Michael A. Weinstein on August 11, 2004
http://www.pinr.com

Recent events and persisting conditions in Iraq have lowered the probability that the country will become a strong centralized nation-state after its transition.

The United States has abandoned any serious attempts to transform Iraq into a market democracy. Having withdrawn to a posture of force protection, back-up support for local forces and concentration on rooting out international Islamic revolutionaries, Washington has little street-level influence on the shaping of Iraqi political forces. Those forces are moving rapidly in the opposite direction from American plans and interests.
~snip~
.
.
.

- Contenders for Power

Iraq is currently a contested space with no unifying political formula to focus a common identity. The three major contenders for power -- the Shi'a Arabs, Sunni Arabs and Sunni Kurds -- have embraced overall strategies that lead them toward confrontation. Shi'a Arabs seek to dominate a single Iraqi state; Sunni Arabs seek to recover the dominance that they once had or at least parity with the Shi'a; Kurds seek to retain the autonomy -- amounting to independence -- that they had before the occupation, and extend their rule to oil-rich regions with large Kurdish populations that were outside their protected zone. Shi'a aims are opposed by Sunni Arabs and Kurds; Kurdish aims are opposed by Sunni and Shi'a Arabs; Sunni aims are opposed by Shi'a Arabs and Kurds.
~snip~
.
.
.

- Weakness of Forces Mitigating Conflict

Many analysts and commentators argue that understanding Iraqi politics through the perceived interests of its major ethnic groups oversimplifies the actual situation. They are correct that Iraq is a diverse and complex society with a panoply of political tensions, but they miss the point that the occupation has brought a hardening of group identities that dissolves other allegiances, partly because of the communal representation system imposed by the occupation authority that carried over to the transitional government, and partly because insecurity drives people under the protective cover of their ethnic groups. It would be a mistake to believe that the basic ethnic divide was not the formative structure of Iraqi society before the occupation -- the deep fissures that had been barely covered by dictatorship have simply become wider.
~snip~
.
.
.


- Emerging Insular Tendencies

The most important indicator of a tendency toward group insularity in Iraq is the appearance of movements with wide support among Shi'a and Sunni Arabs that are based upon rejection of the occupation and the transitional government. Both Moqtada al-Sadr's rise to legitimacy in the Shi'a community after leading a rebellion against the occupation and Sheikh Hareth al-Dhari's rise to legitimacy in the Sunni Arab community through his Association of Islamic Scholars make similar forms of Islamism permanent and significant components of Iraqi politics that are above ground. Al-Sadr's and al-Dhari's movements pull their respective communities towards confrontational stands against the other groups and make it more politically risky for more moderate factions to compromise across ethnic lines.
~snip~
.
.
.

- Conclusion

Behind the recent developments that cast doubts on a centralized future for Iraq is the eruption of permanently organized insular tendencies within the Shi'a and Sunni Arab communities, and the persistence of such tendencies among the Kurds who continue to exert pressure on Arabs -- mostly Shi'a -- who had migrated to the north under Saddam Hussein's "Arabization" program. As outside powers remain unwilling and unable to impose centralization, Iraq slides toward eventual separation, preceded by intensified insurgency and, perhaps, civil war.
-----###-----

- The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an analysis-based publication that seeks to, as objectively as possible, provide insight into various conflicts, regions and points of interest around the globe. PINR approaches a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to the reader. This report may not be reproduced, reprinted or broadcast without the written permission of [e-mail]. All comments should be directed to [e-mail].

------------------------------

[wtmusic]

1. Iraq's 'separation' from what?

their loved ones?