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Failure of Democracy in Iraq and the continuing Insurgency could split Iraq
Close to two months after the announcement of election results. The Shias and Kurd leaders say they are working out agreement for the formation of a new government. A new government may soon be formed, but the kind of haranguing that has gone into it does not forebode good for the future. Each faction pulls in a different direction. The Kurds want more autonomy and eventually a separate homeland Kurdistan. The Shias want an Iraq dominated by them as they can always command a brute majority in a free and fair election. And the Sunnis want to preserve by intimidation and terrorism, the dominance they enjoyed till recently under Saddam. This could as well lead to an Iraq partitioned into three separate nations.  This bust of Saddam has seen better days ____________________________
If this happens the responsibility would be equally divided between the rebellious Sunni triangle of Iraq; and its increasingly turbulent Shiite south; and ironically it's the relatively stable Kurdish north, the area where American policy has been most successful, would also have its share of responsibility in the division of Iraq. If you're a Kurdish leader in northern Iraq watching the mess unfolding in the rest of the country, the questions increasingly running through your mind would be: How long before we Kurds give up on a united Iraq and choose independence? Why stay part of Iraq and risk being drawn into the out-of-control maelstrom overtaking the rest of the country?
.  The inability of the elected Iraqi legislators in forming a government is building frustration in face of the continuing Jihadi insurgency _____________________________
And if Kurds break away from Iraq, that would enrage Turkey, which fears that an independent Iraqi Kurdish state would attract its own 12 million to 14 million Kurds. Iraq's fragmentation also would prove that Washington's vision of a united and democratic Iraq was a pipe dream. A restive Turkish Kurdistan, could strengthen Islamist forces in Turkey, destabilizing Turkish Democracy and weakening the secular traditions of Kemal Ataturk, pulling Turkey even further from the possibility of EU membership, giving rise to the demand for an Islamist Turkey, if not, hopefully, for a revival of the Khilafat (Caliphate) abolished by Kemal Atraturk in 1920. A Turkish civil war on the lines of what happened in Algeria cannot be ruled out entirely.
How the failure of quick formation of the new Iraqi government and the continuing Jihadi Insurgency in Iraq can ominously take not just Iraq, but the entire Middle East into a vortex of Islamic insurgency
Coming back to Iraq, for the Kurds of Iraq, after decades of torture, mass executions, forced relocation and chemical attacks by Saddam Hussein's monstrous regime, the Kurds today have a chance to chart their destiny. So far, they have followed the American script. But today there are three possibilities:
- an Iraq convulsed by violence for years to come;
- a Shiite-dominated Iraq; or
- an Iraq that fragments.
The first possibility could unleash Islamist forces in Saudi Arabia (and also in the Gulf countries, Yemen, Egypt, Libya), inviting greater American involvement for stabilizing the Saudi regime with limited intervention in Egypt and elsewhere.
The second possibility of a Shiite-dominated Iraq, would strengthen Iran’s idea of a Shia Axis to counter an American invasion. This in fact would invite an American pre-emptive strike on Iran in the next few months, leading to further convulsions in the wider Islamic world, especially in Pakistani Balouchistan where Iran has already helping to foment an insurgency.
The third possibility of an Iraq that fragments, is equally perilous, since it would destabilize Turkey. The increasing upheaval we see today makes it increasingly necessary to contemplate all the three possibilities; all of which translate to one eventuality – a Middle East in ferment. And to be buried in this chaos will be the rubble of America’s blueprint for a democratic Iraq that was to transforms the Middle East's landscape into a benign democratic zone. In this scenario, increasing American boots in the theatre of war would be self-defeating and lead to greater American casualties.
What may work is far too ruthless to contemplate – to re-enact what the allies did in Dresden in the closing years of the World War II – but would America be ready to go for this option, unless by then the Jihadis succeed in launching their much vaunted nuclear strike against the West, that they boast will upset the balance of power and re-define the parameters of victory and defeat for them and for the West. A boast yes, but not empty enough to prevent millions of civilian deaths in the West, and devastating enough to enrage the democratic world to carry the war on terror to a successful finish at a cost in terms of human lives that has become unimaginable since the days of Hiroshima.
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