Undoing Iraq

[oxbow]

So it’s the 2-year anniversary of the war in Iraq, and we’re still trying to figure out how to bring peace to the region. Everybody thinks that once we get this “insurgency” under control, everything’s going to be hunky dory. Once again though, people are ignoring the causes behind the problem, in this case, the reason why there's an insurgency in the first place.

See, the problem is that Iraq isn’t a real state. It was created by the British in the 1920’s, back when they were the imperial overlords of the region. They sewed together the three territories of Baghdad, Mosul and Basra into one nation after WWI, mainly to make it easier to control the flow of petroleum coming out of the region. Eventually, controlling Iraq proved to be too difficult for the British and they pulled out, giving democracy to the Iraqi people as they left. But this newly free "state" had all these different tribes and ethnic groups in it. None of them had ever worked together before, and all of them were suddenly supposed to be ruled by a single government. In hindsight, it’s no surprise that civil war ensued shortly after democracy was given to the “Iraqis.”

Fast forward 70 years or so: Order had been kept in Iraq by a Sunni dictator who controlled all the other groups through terror and torture. When outsiders overthrew that dictator, all the old rivalries sprung up almost immediately. The Sunnis, who were in power before, were afraid that they would become powerless in the new government. The Shiites, who had been oppressed for decades under the dictator, were eager to exercise their political muscle, seeing as they were in the majority. The Kurds just wanted to secede, just take their oil fields with them and kiss the other two goodbye.

So what’s to be done? Why, just break up this chimera of a state! Give each of the ethnic groups their ancestral lands back, and let them go back to the way things were before the British fucked it all up. Why is this not even considered by anyone though? Maybe they just don’t read their history? Unlikely, since it was the British who played Dr. Frankenstein with all these different people in the first place. Maybe the Iraqi people want to stay a state? Stop bullshitting me. The Kurds voted 9 to 1 for secession in a non-binding referendum that also took place on Election Day. The Sunnis clearly aren’t pleased with the way things are. And the Shiites would probably be a lot happier without all these other groups around complicating how they want to run their country.

So what’s the reason why nobody considers letting “Iraq” go back to the way it originally was? Well call me pessimistic, but I think it’s the same reason why Iraq was created in the first place: It’s so much easier to deal with one government than three plus when you’re trying to get access to the “resources” in the area. The people might not want to live together but then again, its not what’s above ground that ever really mattered.

(I don't normally post entries from my blog, but I need some feedback on this particular one. Thanks y'all!)

[Igel]

1. I've wondered about this for a while.

I figure there are a few different factors all working in tandem.

The first is that no country (i.e., the majority of its citizens) wants to give up territory. Split up Iraq, and you presumably have Syrian, Turkish, and probably Iranian Kurds wanting out of their current arrangements, as well as, arguably, the Shi'a Arabs in Iran's SW and Sa'udi Arabia's NE. Those Shi'a Arabs sit on a lot of oil that S.A. and Iran would begrudge.

These countries call for Chechen independence, but don't want Christians in the S. of Sudan to split off. The religious and ethnic fault lines are obvious.

Then there's the drive for stability so valued by China and the EU. Free? Not a problem. Unstable? Massive problem. Splitting up countries in the Middle East would pose the dilemma of why it's ok there, but not elsewhere. France wasn't built on one ethnicity, neither was Spain, Austria, or even Germany, as they engaged in cultural homogenization and abolition of the cultural identity of their minorities--Bretagnes, Catalan, Basques, Sorbs, Slovenes ... Then there's Africa, where the ethnicities are even more numerous.

The instability caused by splitting up ME countries would undoubtedly lead to war and ethnic cleansing. This isn't a bad thing, necessarily, since it can make for fewer ethnic tensions after a while: separating out Poles/Germans, Czechs/Germans, Italians/Slovenes, Greeks/Turks was a mixed bag, yielding more stability now in spite of the ethnic cleansing at the time; not separating out Hungarians/Slovaks or Bulgarians/Turks wasn't a good move, history shows. And we'll ignore the split up of Tito's Yugoslavia. But the Shi'a and Sunni Arabs are mixed together, as well as the Turks/Kurds and Kurds/Arabs ... and that's just Iraq.

In addition to the political upheaval, we'd have economic chaos: Who'd honor the old contracts and debts? How would loyalties play out? And what do you do with all the little countries that would be formed, but may have insurmountable economic hurdles? And how would the distribution of resources from what used to be unified countries work--Sunni Arabs sit mostly on desert, Shi'a have lots of oil, Kurds want Kirkuk so they can have oil, too. The Sunni Arabs wouldn't like giving up their source of wealth.