Washington: The capture of cities in central Iraq by al Qaeda-influenced jihadis and in the north by Kurds has not only redrawn the map of a country corroded by sectarian hatred, it could also redesign West Asia's national boundaries set nearly a century ago after the fall of the Ottoman empire, and lead to a forging of new regional alliances.
As the ISIL fighters pressed south towards Baghdad, and the Kurds took Kirkuk in the north, the rest of the region, the United States and other powers woke up to the prospect that this jihadi comeback could establish a dangerous base in the heart of West Asia — an Afghanistan on the Mediterranean.
Iraq broadly falls into distinct regions that line up with ethnic or religious groups: A Kurdish north, a Sunni middle, and a Shiite south. There were held together by previous regimes, including that of Saddam Hussein that was undone during the US-led invasion.
"What we are witnessing (now) is the fragmentation of power,” said Fawaz Gerges, a West Asia expert at the London School of Economics. “We are seeing a redrawing of boundaries for sure,” he said.
Emma Sky, a fellow at Yale University who advised US forces in Iraq until 2010, called the events “the slow death” of the Iraqi state,” McClatchy reported
“We are seeing the state of Iraq disintegrate before our eyes,” Feisal Amin Rasoul Istrabadi, Iraq’s former envoy to the U.N. and the director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East at Indiana University, told the Time magazine. “We seem to be headed now for a truly sectarian civil war.”
In Kurdistan, a region that has enjoyed autonomy for two decades, the tensions fall along territorial lines. Where the Iraqi forces failed to confront the ISIS, the Kurdish militia, known as the peshmerga, triumphed in battle. “Some Kurdish politicians see this as the perfect moment to declare independence,” Hoshang Waziri, an Iraqi analyst based in Erbil, told Time magazine.
“This isn’t really a Kurd, Sunni and Shia war, this is a war between Sunnis and Shias, one that the Kurds do not want to get involved in. The best solution for this crisis at this point would be to build three different states.”
The idea of dividing Iraq along ethno-sectarian lines dates almost all the way back to its formation at the end of World War I, when the country was carved out of the former Ottoman empire.
In 2006, it had a resurgence, when then Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair, and now Vice President, Joe Biden suggested in a New York Times op-ed essay that semi-autonomous sections should be created along sectarian lines.
“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,” he had written.
