Brian M Downing
State collapse
Many longstanding democracies, including the US, Britain, France, and Israel face worrisome polarization and gridlock. A young, frail democracy is in far worse shape. The government has been a state of disarray for several months.
Recent events are making coalition-building all the more difficult. Angry crowds are going beyond chants and vandalism to attack various government, Iranian, and US positions. The government has fired upon them, killing hundreds.
Many crowds are spontaneous gatherings of individuals expressing legitimate grievances. Others, however, are mobilized by political factions and their militias – pro-Iran, anti-Iran, and anti-US. Politics is conducted less by speeches and majority decisions and more by street protests and armed bands. The state is nearing irrelevance, like ones in Somalia and Libya.
Iraq may be reaching a point when political factions and armed bands have more public support than the government. They may begin to seize oil infrastructure, bridges and roadways, factories, and power plants.
As David Kilcullen notes, militias don’t arise when the state collapses, the state collapses when militias arise.
Kurds and Sunnis
Relatively silent amid the turmoil have been the Sunni tribes of Anbar and the Kurds of the north. Neither wants to be ruled by a Shia government in Baghdad and the capital’s grasp on the west and north is slipping.
Kurdistan has demonstrated little ability to govern itself. Rival forces were able to grind down ISIL but beyond that, factionalism and feuding prevailed, letting Baghdad and Ankara end the region’s dream of independence. The Turks remain opposed to Kurdish independence and control the region’s oil pipeline route, but if Baghdad collapses Kurdistan may nonetheless come about.
The Sunnis of western Iraq resent the loss of their privileged positions in the army and state and seethe under Shia rule. Baghdad is more accommodating toward Sunnis than ten years ago but resentments continue. State collapse may provide the opportunity for Sunni autonomy if not more.
The Sunnis will find support from Saudi Arabia which is ever eager to weaken Shia power, though highly reluctant to use its army. The chief tribal confederation in western Iraq, the Dulayim, stretches across the border into Saudi Arabia making way for cooperation. Actually, Saudi funds went to Sunni bands during the insurgence (2003-07), so ties are in place.
Just to the west of Sunni Iraq is a breakaway part of Syria presently occupied by Kurdish and Arab militias backed by American and British special forces. They are as hostile to Damascus’s rule as Sunni Iraqis are to Baghdad’s.
Iran
Collapse in Iraq would greatly concern Iran. The vacuum could lead to the influx of hostile Sunni and American forces. Unlikely as this might appear elsewhere, the view from Tehran is of course shaped by the Sunni invasion of 1980 which led to eight years of war and between 400,000 and 800,000 deaths, many of them from missile strikes on cities and chemical weapons on frontline troops.
Iran might occupy parts of Iraq. A position in eastern Kurdistan would allow Tehran to seize havens used by insurgents in its own Kurdish region. Other border areas could be occupied as a defensive glacis against potential Sunni enemies, including a resurgent ISIL which would threaten holy sites in Karbala and Najaf and Iran itself .
© 2020 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.