Borzou Daragahi in the Financial Times Thursday (June 12th edition) sees Iraq rapidly fragmenting into three distinct “ethnic and sectarian cantons” – Kurdish, Sunni and Shiia. Simon Henderson’s article in Foreign Policy (also published on June 12th, hopefully you can read by clicking here) describes the battle for Iraq as a Saudi war on Iran. Both of these establishment publications point to the West’s growing and grudging acknowledgement that the Middle East nation state structure is broken, fragmented. But perhaps the local populace does not have this same sense of national fragmentation. Perhaps for them the divisions remain sectarian rather than national. And the challenge remains finding, or more correctly, rediscovering, a political structure that functions with sectarian plurality.
This whole concept of fragmentation hints at a confirmation bias in terms of whether these nations can or should continue to function. Jonathan Spyer in The Tower asks the right question: “Do Syria, Iraq and Lebanon still exist?” Click here to read his analysis. Spyer article points to an often forgotten reality: the “nation state” structure of the Middle East was imposed on the region by the West to manage the development of oil resources after World War I. The current crisis in Iraq is part of that ongoing, century long, projection of Western power into the region.
Perhaps the sound and fury currently seen in the mainstream media starts from a false premise: that the regional populace bought into the Nation State structure imposed by the West. The reality is the populace in the region still identifies with traditional sectarian divisions (Sunni, Shiia, or Kurd) which are then projected into the geopolitical realm (Kingdom of Saudia Arabia, Islamic Republic of Iran, etc.).
Here is another way to view this: In the West, individuals and organizations look to accomplish their financial and political goals through the nation state, which united them regardless of, or in spite of, any sectarian membership. The Western populace acts financially and politically through the nation station, not through its sectarian groups and divisions. If the articles cited above are correct, this is not true in the Middle East, at least at the popular level. Economic and political activity begin with, and are expressed through, sectarian institutions, which then look for expression in some sort of geopolitical structure.
The mainline media perhaps also misses understanding US interests are in the region. Increasing energy independence in the US and other industrial regions is resulting in a disengagement from the Middle East. If that disengagement continues on its current trajectory, then US interests are best served by a limited involvement, one aimed at making sure one of the two sectarian groups, or its geopolitical expressions (Sunnis –> Kingdom of Saudia Arabia vs. Shiites –> Islamic Republic of Iran), do not gain an advantage. In short, to maintain a stalemate.