Iraq Dissolved?

Mrs. X, her mom, and I have had several discussions regarding the recent war in Iraq. Generally, Mrs. X’s mom is a little more conservative, but in this she is quite of the mind that an Iraqi civil war is inevitable and that we should just leave now and let them get it over with. I’m not ready to buy into complete civil war such as we had, but I think I will honestly be surprised if I look at a map in 10 years and see a country labeled Iraq and looking like it is now.

In the north, you have a region that is completely controlled by the Kurds and has functioned as an autonomous region ever since the first Iraq war back in 1991. They have an independent state in all but name and between 80 and 90 percent of the population favor having an independent state of Kurdistan rather than staying with Iraq.

On the southern side, there is a strong presence of Shia Muslims who probably wouldn’t have too much of a problem being absorbed into the Iranian state. Some of the intelligencia wouldn’t care for this, but they might be outnumbered by the masses. The Sunnis are primarily in the western section of the country and could unite with Jordan and Syria.

The problem with the simple breakup idea though is the upcoming war between Israel and its Arab neighbors. I’ve talked before about how Israel might be invaded on three sides by various Arab factions. Iran might even get involved by attacking US positions in Iraq and keeping us pinned down long enough for the western Arabs to significantly weaken Israel. Its unknown as to how the Shia Iraqis would respond to an invasion like this, whether they would join the Iranians in attacking us or they would resist the invasion. The Kurds would back us as well as Israel as they have strong ties to both countries, but I could also see them using this war to completely entrench themselves in the city of Kirkuk, which they are steadily trying to get back from the Arabs. The Sunnis meanwhile would support the Arab invasion of Israel and try to grab their own base of power as well.

So what’s the outcome? It depends on how strong Israel decides to push back. If they just expel the invaders, things might return to a status quo with a low level civil war now going on in Iraq. But if Israel pushes back as hard as they should have in 1967, things will be very different. Israel would completely expel the Arabs from Gaza and take over the entire West Bank. They might even seize land in Syria and Jordan to create a buffer zone between Israel and any foreign invader. Kurdistan would recognize the expanded state and form a trading alliance with Israel, forming a territorial border and trading highway through land formally possessed by Syria. With this new alliance, the two would unite and be strong enough to refute any advance from Turkey, which is not partial towards the Kurds. Depending on how quickly the Iranians were pushed back, territorial concessions might be made there, although the status quo might be maintained. Eventually, some of the mostly Shia areas of Iraq might defect to Iran, but that’s still very iffy. But Iraq itself would probably be dissolved into several minor states, including a southern Shia zone and a central Sunni zone. The middle region where Baghdad currently is might be declared a free zone, monitored and maintained by the international community, leading to a possible reconstruction of the city of Babylon as a free city of the future for which the leaders of the world might hammer out any problems.

Extreme possibility? Perhaps. Possible? Certainly. We’ll see what happens in a couple of years.