Brian M Downing
The national borders from the eastern Mediterranean to the Iranian border were made after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. Britain and France, with little consideration for sectarian or ethnic realities, drew lines across the area and established the new countries of Iraq and Syria.
As authoritarian regimes disappear under the weight of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and the ongoing uprising in Syria, regional boundaries may be redrawn by indigenous peoples and regional powers. Five new states could emerge: Shi’ite Iraq, Sunni Iraq, Sunni Syria, Greater Kurdistan, and Shi’ite Syria.
Shi’ite Iraq
Sunnis governed the Mesopotamian area since the time of the Ottomans, as they did after the British installed the Hashemite monarchy to govern Iraq in the 1920s and also under later rulers, including Saddam Hussein. Nonetheless, Iraq was, and is, overwhelmingly Shi’ite – at least 60% today, perhaps much more owing to Sunnis’ fleeing to Syria over the last few years.
Representative democracy in Iraq, however tentative and imperfect it presently is, will always mean Shi’ite rule. Representative democracy also means ties to Iran – not simply because of sectarian affinities, but also because Iran organized many of Iraq’s political movements and militia bands during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-89). All this should have been clear before the US invaded in 2003, as should the prospects for fragmentation.
Iran’s influence is substantial but not dominant. After all, Iraq has granted oil licenses and defense contracts to US companies and this could not have sat well in Tehran. Further, Iraq was amenable to a continued US troop presence but it insisted on subjecting them to local law, which was unacceptable to Washington. And so the troops left in December 2011.
The Iraqi government faces the task of holding together a fractious country and negotiating a middle way between Iran and the US. As oil income climbs to the levels of affluent neighbors, the government will have extraordinary revenues, giving it the opportunity to become a “rentier state” that holds together disparate groups through generous subsidies.
The unifying rentier-state approach for Iraq has two problems. The Kurdish north has its own oil resources which make their way to world markets via Turkey, avoiding the older routes into southern Iraq. The Sunni center has only modest oil resources, though promising tracts lie in its Anbar province. Sunni participation in the Baghdad government is limited by an unwritten principle of government that has more force than any passage in the constitution: the Sunnis will never have significant political power again.
Iraq will be ruled by Shi’ites, whether it remains unified or breaks apart. Internal and external forces make the latter scenario more likely.
Sunni Iraq
Angered by lost power and inauspicious prospects, Sunnis seek to establish an autonomous region in the central and western provinces. Eventually, they may try to establish an independent state which will allow them to predominate as they had long been accustomed until 2003. They will not have to look far for help.
Iraq, in Riyadh’s view, is not negotiating a middle way between Iran and the US. It is a staunch ally of Iran, if not its vassal. A portentous chapter in Riyadh’s Gulf policy is opening. Previously, Saudi Arabia supported Saddam’s invasion of Iran in 1980 and argued against the US’s invasion that ousted him in 2003. Today, it is scrambling furiously to contain Iranian-Shi’ite power. Insurgency and intrigue in Sunni Iraq are promising tactics.
Saudi Arabia wields influence in the Salafi networks in Iraq and in the Dulayim tribes that straddle the Iraq-Saudi frontier. That influence was important in helping the US abate the Sunni insurgency in 2007 and it remains in force as Shi’ite power consolidates in Baghdad.
Today, the Saudis are reorganizing the disparate groups of the old Sunni insurgency. Baathists, demobilized soldiers, Salafi networks, and tribal bands act in a more disciplined manner now and ply their deadly skills against Shi’ite targets in their campaign for autonomy or independence.
The Shi’ite government held back from confronting the new Sunni insurgents while US troops were still in country, but with their departure in December, a crackdown looms. Events, however, are complicated by the ongoing Gulf crisis, which makes any action a potential trigger of a regional war, and by the Syrian uprising, which is drawing away Sunni insurgents.
Sunni Syria
The Assad government – an Alawite elite in a predominantly Sunni country – faces widening revolt from within and growing opposition from without. It is unlikely to survive. Even many Shi’ites are voicing their opposition to the Assad regime. They do so out of sincere recognition of the need for political reform and out of fear of a post-Assad reckoning for those deemed supportive of the increasingly murderous regime.
Syria, owing to sectarian and geopolitical complications, presents graver regional problems than do any of the other countries in the Arab Spring. The Assad regime is chiefly Alawite, a Shi’ite sect, though Syria is 74% Sunni. The regime is backed by Iran and Russia, but opposed by Saudi Arabia and to an uncertain extent by many NATO powers as well.
Further complicating the situation are the hundreds of thousands of Sunni Iraqis living in Syria, who fled the sectarian fighting in Iraq and resent the Shi’ite government in Baghdad. They are eager to avenge their loss of power back home and have maintained contacts with like-minded people still in Iraq.
Russia has a warm-water port in Syria and sells large amounts of arms to Damascus. Iran too sells it arms, shares its sectarian beliefs, and sees it as a link to allies in Lebanon and Palestine. China is also a supplier of arms, and like Russia, used its veto on the UN Security Council to protect the Assad government. All three states have voiced support for their beleaguered ally, but none is likely to send ground troops to help it. Syria will have to face mounting opposition on its own.
Saudi Arabia is eager if not desperate to detach Syria from Iran. It has vast funds, of course, and a number of Sunni fighters at its disposal. Smaller Sunni states are already smuggling weapons to the rebels, as they did in Libya last year. Riyadh’s deployment of men and materiel into Syria requires no debate in its public or at the UN.
Many Sunni insurgents who operated against the US and then Shi’ite Iraq – the tribal bands, Salafis, former soldiers – are beginning to shift their energies against the Shi’ite regime to the west. Iraqi veterans who took the Saudi king’s riyal and now serve in Saudi forces are eager to settle accounts with their sectarian foes. The old smuggling routes that brought arms and fighters from Syria into Iraq are of course two-way streets and capable of bearing heavier traffic.
These Saudi-backed forces are capable of sustaining guerrilla operations inside Syria almost indefinitely and should Assad’s pitiless repression continue for some time, Damascus and Aleppo could resemble Baghdad and Falujah of a few years ago.
The guerrillas will not want for funds and will enjoy safe havens in western Iraq, well outside the control of the government in Baghdad. The indigenous fighters of the Free Syrian Army will have skilled and resolute allies as long as Assad remains in power. After that, all bets are off as Riyadh’s preference for autocracy will not mesh with the hopes of the Syrian uprising.
A Sunni-dominated Syria may be in the offing. The arduous problems of building democracy and restructuring the crony-dominated economy now facing Tunisia and Egypt will command the attention of Syrians for many months or even years, but Saudi Arabia will use its wealth to align Syria with Riyadh’s foreign policy.
The Sunni majority is unlikely to have warm feelings for Iran, which supported and armed Assad, or for Shi’ites inside Syria, who may be uniformly deemed traitors. The new Syria will share Saudi Arabia’s opposition to Iran, Shi’ite Iraq, and Iran’s allies such as Hizbullah and Hamas. Sunni Syria will support a Sunni Iraq in central and western Iraq.
Longer term, this may lead to a federation of the two Sunni regions, with Shi’ite Syria left in a precarious situation. In strengthening regional opposition to Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel will expand their cautious, initially puzzling, yet productive partnership.
Greater Kurdistan
The Kurdish people over the years have been the victims of regional powers and the pawns of various intelligence services. Events have given them the opportunity to create their own state; nature has given them the opportunity for a wealthy one.
Following the First Gulf War in 1991, the US, Britain, and France enforced a no-fly zone over northern Iraq, which gave the Kurds the opportunity to govern themselves without fear of large-scale attacks from Saddam. The Second Gulf War shattered the Iraq government and the Kurds have all but seceded, establishing their own flag, constitution, and army.
The Kurdish economy is booming and oil production is poised to grow nicely, especially if the Kurds break from from the revenue-sharing programs demanded by lower Iraq. Sectarian conflict inside Iraq and Syria may provide the opportunity to break away. Working arrangements with Turkey and Exxon Mobil may prove helpful here.
The Kurdish people, of course, dwell in several countries – Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria. The uprising in Syria has been accompanied by demands from Syrian Kurds (some 8% of the 22 million Syrians) for greater “autonomy” – a term to the Kurdish people approximating “independence,” if not a code word for it.
Kurds serving in the Syrian army are refusing orders. Kurdish leaders are on guard as assassinations and assassination attempts have occurred, presumably on the orders of Syrian security forces. The Assad regime is increasingly desperate to hold onto control of the country, perhaps especially so in the Kurdish areas, which contain much of the country’s oil reserves and are contiguous to Kurdish Iraq.
Israel is motivated and positioned to aid in the creation of a greater Kurdistan. Israeli intelligence has had strategic ties with many Kurdish groups over the years. In the days of the Israeli-Iranian alliance, Israeli intelligence worked with Iranian Kurds to build ties with other Kurds in the region, especially those in two of Israel’s most powerful allies – Syria and Iraq. By arming and training Kurds there, the Assads and Saddam had to allocate troops against them and Israel built valuable guerrilla allies across the region.
Israeli-Iranian comity ended in the early 90s, as Saddam’s army was badly damaged in the First Gulf War and Iranian power appeared unchecked and a potential danger. Israeli intelligence officers now work almost openly in northern Iraq and have turned their Kurdish assets against Tehran and perhaps also against Damascus.
Saudi Arabia’s disposition toward Kurdish autonomy in Syria and Iraq isn’t as readily discernible. Syrian Kurds may be useful in undermining Shi’ite dominance and Iranian influence, but it might open up too much instability stemming from the prospect of a new oil-rich power to reckon with – one with long ties to Israel whose alliance with Riyadh is unlikely to be enduring.
Riyadh would of course welcome any difficulties the Kurds might inflict upon Iran, and support for greater Kurdistan in Syria and beyond might be an agreeable trade-off. Saudi Arabia would dearly love to see Israel and the US incite an insurgency in Iranian Kurdistan while Riyadh uses its own contacts with the Arabs of Iran’s Khuzestan province to incite rebellion.
However, Tehran’s repressive capacity in the form of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) remains high.
Uprisings would depend on signs of paralysis in Tehran. This could come from an eventual standoff between a strengthened reform movement and a divided regime, fiscal collapse brought on by continued sanctions, or from a sustained air campaign against IRGC bases and the axes of approach into Kurdistan and Khuzestan – though the latter is the heart of the oil industry and heavily defended.
The same can be said of an uprising in the Baloch region in southeastern Iran. The Baloch in Iran resent Tehran’s rule just as the Baloch across the frontier in Pakistan do Islamabad’s. They presently enjoy a measure of support from Saudi and perhaps US intelligence services and watch Tehran for an opportune moment.
Shi’ite Syria
Sectarian strife inside Syria is becoming sharper as the uprising continues into its second year and become more violent. The Alawites and other Shi’ites – some 12% of the population and concentrated in the northwest along the Mediterranean coast – are suffering acts of vengeance and intolerance, even though many are joining the opposition to Assad. Sectarian conflict, foreign intrigue, and the example of Kurdish separatism may lead to a Sunni-Shi’ite partition.
The Shi’ites were long discontent and even oppressed under the Ottomans, the French Mandate, and much of the independent republic. The Alawite branch of the Shi’ites became ascendant in national affairs only when Hafez al-Assad took power in 1970, after which he placed his coreligionists in key positions of the state, military, and economy.
In that the uprising is essentially based on dismantling this preeminence and opening the state and economy to all, the Shi’ites may become an oppressed minority once again. Alternately, they may seek to establish an autonomous region or independent state in their homeland along the coast – a prospect that will be received differently by foreign powers.
Iran will support a Shi’ite region or state as an effort to retain a measure of influence in the eastern Mediterranean. Without it, Iran’s connections to Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine would become tenuous and its reasons for sending warships into the Mediterranean would disappear. For its part, Hizbullah might welcome a Shi’ite ally to its north, one with ties to the Shi’ites in Lebanon. Russia will support almost any initiative that would help it to retain its naval base at Tartus and its foothold in the Mediterranean.
Opposition to a Shi’ite region will be greater. The Sunnis of Syria will not want an adjacent state tied to Iran that, rightly or wrongly, will be assumed to be tied to Tehran and dedicated to a revanchist course. Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states will oppose any entity tied to Iran, regardless if mullahs or reformists rule in Tehran.
Foreign Sunni influence will of course be significant in post–Assad Syria as the country rebuilds and tries to provide opportunities for young people. Better, Riyadh will counsel (if not insist), keep the Shi’ites out of national affairs, as with their brethren in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
Nor will Israel be receptive to a Shi’ite state tied to Iran, Hizbullah, and Hamas. It would be much preferred to see Iran’s links to the eastern Mediterranean as difficult as possible and to keep the Shi’ites a part of Syria, if only as an aggrieved minority diverting Damascus’s attention and resources from other matters.
A paradoxical symmetry is coming about in Syria and Iraq. In Syria, the once downtrodden Sunni majority will predominate over the unseated Shi’ite minority; in Iraq, the once marginalized Shi’ite majority will hold sway over the old Sunni minority. The symmetry, however, does not mean stability. It may even be fearful.
Stability in the new region
As initially hopeful as Shia-Sunni separatism might be, the sectarian geography of both Iraq and Syria is complex and vexing. While Syrian Shi’ites are concentrated in the northwest coastal area and Iraqi Shi’ites in their south, large pockets of one sect are found in an area where the other is far more numerous.
The two sects coexist, reasonably well or not, in the same rural villages and in the same neighborhoods of large cities. The Sunni Dulayim confederation that straddles Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia has Shi’ite tribes; and even the Kurdish regions have Shi’ite tribes living among them. Accordingly, separation will never be smooth.
The rise of a Kurdish state from northern Iraq and possibly northeastern Syria will begin to solve the longstanding matter of their homeland, but it presents many problems for adjacent countries. Should Syrian Kurds unite with their Iraqi kin, alarm signals will ring out in Ankara and Tehran. It will be feared that Kurdish nationalism, awakened by rising power and booming oil exports, will set its eyes on Kurdish areas in Turkey and Iran. Greater Kurdistan will come at the expense of Turkish and Iranian territorial integrity.
Turkey has mixed relations with the Kurdish region of Iraq, benefiting from construction contracts and oil transit fees but angered by Kurdish attacks inside Turkey. Ankara’s responses are irate denunciations followed by desultory air strikes that seek to send a message but not upset trade. Iran watches Kurdish Iraq with great interest as the area teems with foreign intelligence officers. Occasional Kurdish forays into Iran have met with Iranian responses, including ground incursions and artillery barrages.
Despite the uncertainties ahead and the knowledge that even skillful plans can go awry, Israel stands to win from a reworked region. A dextrous Kurdish policy – and no small amount of good fortune – could bring a boon. Israel’s three most powerful enemies – Syria, Iraq, and Iran – could be broken into pieces, perhaps permanently.
Fragmenting Iran is unlikely, perhaps highly so, but Iraq is heading toward three-way division and Syria could well follow. The fragmentation of two out of three enemies to its north and east would yield Israel a monumental strategic windfall.
Further, sectarian states would be preoccupied by internal matters and perhaps even poised against one another, granting Israel a relatively non-threatening northeastern front for a decade or more. Greater Kurdistan’s long-term security relations are uncertain but Israel’s decades-long support will weigh in its calculus.
A fragmented Syria and Iraq would more than compensate for the uncertainty presented by the fall of Mubarak and the rise of Islamist governments in Tunisia and Egypt. And all this might come into being without the cost of a single Israeli life.
Ongoing conflicts in Syria and Iraq will increase Sunni militancy as armed groups in the employ of indigenous parties and Saudi intelligence grow in numbers and skill. Weapons have never been in short supply in the Middle East and the arms caches of Assad’s military will soon spread throughout the region just as Col Qaddafi’s weapons are spreading throughout northwestern Africa.
Salafist groups will become especially more numerous, energetic, and lethal. Even upon political settlements someday, they will be no more likely to return to mundane lives than their fathers did upon returning from the mujahadin war in Afghanistan. American audiences may recognize this scene as where they came in.
Historians may one day discuss how much of this fragmentation came from injudicious nation-drawing after WWI and how much came from realpolitik in our own day. Historians will certainly discuss its denouement, should that ever arrive.
Brian M Downing is a political/military analyst and author of The Military Revolution and Political Change and The Paths of Glory: War and Social Change in America from the Great War to Vietnam.