Iraqistan

Irrendentism is a poli-sci term which refers to the propensity of Balkanized states to reconstitute themselves as part of the larger political entity to which they once belonged. Vladimir Putin is an irrententist to the extent that he would essentially like to bring back the U.S.S.R. (as is evidenced by his aggressive actions in the Ukraine). The problem with Iraq, despite being the cradle of civilization, is that it never really was a political entity with a history of sociopolitical homogeneity. Iraq was a creation, the troubled legacy of British colonialism. It’s basically a tribal society which has always been divided. So when President Obama considers the once unthinkable return to interventionism in Iraq—igniting airstrikes against ISIS in the hopes of preventing an al-Qaeda type insurgency (actually ISIS is a more radical group which had been expelled from al-Qaeda), he should think about the potential nominees. Nouri al-Maliki supported Shiite interests, but who is to say that more moderate Sunni cadres will be any more dependable? The Sunnis were the faction from which Saddam Hussein emanated. Kurdish leaders used the impending overrunning of Kirkuk by ISIS to take control of the city and it’s hard to think that ISIS could easily threaten the well-organized Kurdish military. As The Washington Post pointed out,  Iraqi Kurdistan is emerging as one of the more stable parts of the country (“Amid turmoil, Iraq’s Kurdish region is laying foundation for independent state,” 6/12/14). Why not put all our cards on the Kurds? Kurdish society, with its relatively more democratic institutions seems like a perfect proxy for the kind of democratic initiatives the US supports.  While the Kurds have a checkered history when it comes to human rights and the rights of women n particular, (“Rights report cites abuses in Kurdish Iraq,” CNN, 4/14/14), Kurdistan could be to Iraq what Israel, in a good sense, is to the Middle East in general. Instead of courting further international sanctions and the disapprobation of those elements of the Iraqi population that will be endangered by air strikes against ISIS, why not simply shore up Kurdistan? It may sound like the old cold war policy of spheres of influence, but as we can see in the instance of Kirkuk, a strong Kurdistan seems to be the best insurance against making Iraq into a major outpost of Islamic extremism.

Prince Jihad of Cloudy Arabia KO'd

Considering the growing power of the democracy movements in the Mideast, Scott Shane poses the following question about Al Qaeda in the February 28th issue of the Times: “Will the terrorist network shrivel slowly to irrelevance? Or will it find a way to exploit the chaos produced by political upheaval and the disappointment that will inevitably follow hopes now raised so high?” (“As Regimes Fall in Arab World, Al Qaeda Sees History Fly By,” NYT, 2/27/11). Shane remarks that these movements have eschewed “the two central tenets of the Qaeda credo: murderous violence and religious fanaticism.” Creating democratic institutions in Iraq was precisely what our previous president listed as one of his objectives in toppling Saddam Hussein, and the failure of our intervention was looked at by some as proof that democracy is an indigenously Western institution. The democratic shoe would not fit the Middle Eastern foot, considering centuries of historic conflict between Sunnis, Shiites and Christians that defies the kind of rationalist solutions that are at the heart of democratic thought. But, lo and behold, current events are defying cynicism about the prospects of homegrown democracy and the belief that democratic values are culture-bound and therefore not exportable. Recent developments have also shown that the lesser-of-two-evils approach that has prevailed as a response to the realpolitik of the Middle East no longer seems to constitute an enlightened or even prudent foreign policy. The U.S. has had to do an about-face in its support of tyrants and former terrorists like Qaddafi whom they’d befriended for the sake of expedience. Shane quotes Christopher Boucek of the Carnegie Endowment as saying, “We have to make clear that our security no longer comes at the expense of poor governance and no rights for the people in those countries.”