Iraq, a Regional Problem That Will Require Unconventional Thinking...

by: Les Carpenter
Rational Nation USA
Purveyor of Truth

The following excerpt from a New York Times article is thought provoking and highlights the current realities present in the political and religious divisions in Iraq as well as the entire region. Difficulties in finding a solution to the unfolding and growing crisis are all too evident.

If there is one thing perfectly clear it is that conventional wisdom and traditional western responses will be inadequate and very likely prove to be counter productive if undertaken. With this in mind the last groups we ought to listen to are the Neocons and the virulent knee jerk anti-Muslin crowd.

The Obama administration has urged Iraqi politicians of different sects to come together, repeating admonitions that were so often heard in the years after the 2003 invasion. But the Pentagon — reluctant to commit more manpower to a complex and profoundly uncertain conflict — has quietly hinted it could live with Iraq’s current division, despite the dangers posed by a potential new terrorist sanctuary in the deserts linking Syria and Iraq.

The context this time is different from a decade ago: Sectarian hatred has begun to alter the region’s political DNA in ways that make the old borders more vulnerable. Many ordinary Sunnis describe the seizing of Mosul and other cities as a popular revolution against a Shiite-led government, not a terrorist onslaught. With Iran, their historic enemy, now lining up drones and other military supplies to help the government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki retake the north — and protect the south — many Sunnis may become further alienated from the state.

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, which supplied the shock troops of the assault on Mosul, has made vigorous efforts to inculcate a new identity for those living within its growing transnational sphere, setting up Shariah courts and publicizing videos in which its fighters burn their passports. Last week, the group issued an eight-page report denouncing the Middle Eastern border system as a colonialist imposition, and included photographs of its fighters destroying what it called “crusader partitions” between Iraq and Syria.

At the same time, the ISIS onslaught has made the formal secession of Iraqi Kurdistan far more plausible. The crisis led Iraqi soldiers to flee from Kirkuk, the contested oil-rich northern city that was among the last major obstacles to Kurdish independence. Across the border in Syria, a Kurdish region in the country’s north is also effectively independent of Damascus, with its own military and provisional government. And Turkey, which in the past strongly opposed an independent Kurdish state on its border, now sees the Kurds as a stable buffer between itself and the extremists of ISIS.

While this site leans heavily towards the establishment of three independent regions in present day Iraq it recognizes the difficulties and pitfalls even this sensible solution presents.

The long shadow of GBW's military excursion into Iraq is likely to haunt the United States of America and indeed the rest of the globe for a very long time.

Read more BELOW THE FOLD.

Via: Memeorandum