Divide and Quit: Why an Iraqi carve-up may not be as clean-cut as it sounds

It’s one of those arguments that doesn’t need elaboration due to its simplicity. You have fissures in a polity. People don’t get along. There are deep divisions in the society. So why not let them draw lines in the dirt and go their own separate ways?

So goes the simple sounding common sense argument for a partition solution. Partition, a word that brings to mind depressing and distressing imagery of the bloodletting which resulted in various partitions in the century gone by – from Cyprus to Northern Ireland to Kashmir to Palestine. And an argument for Iraq’s future if some of its minorities wish to be secede from Baghdad. An argument which has gathered considerable traction in light of the fissures the Islamic State (Daesh) group has sought to sow into Iraqi society in the wake of increased tensions between Erbil and Baghdad and the destabilizing Sunni protests against Baghdad’s policies under former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

The argument is that the Sunni Arabs, the Shia Arabs and the Kurds would be better off if they erected their own states and abolished the Iraqi state as we know it. Such a partition of Iraq could see something like the establishment of an independent Kurdish state, an independent Sunni Arab state in Anbar and central and southern Iraq becoming a predominantly Shia Arab state.

The thing is how the dividing lines will be defined, both in theory and in practice. Shaping the borders could lead to yet more bloodletting. Take the Baghdad-Erbil tensions of the recent past which revolved around, among other things, the Kurdish Regional Government independently exporting the oil on its autonomous territory. An issue which Baghdad and Erbil have reached a compromise over given the pressing threat posed by Daesh. Since Daesh rampaged throughout North Iraq last June the Kurds, almost immediately, entered Kirkuk, an oil-rich city of great significance to Kurdish nationalists which is contested by the Kurds and the Arabs given the systematic ethnic cleansing of the former from it during Saddam Hussein’s rule.

The present premier of Iraqi Kurdistan Massoud Barzani has left the idea of an independence referendum open. But given his nationalist credentials would Barzani relent to any demand from Baghdad to keep Kirkuk within the territory which would remain part of the rest of Iraq if Iraqi Kurdistan does declare full-fledged independence? Furthermore would Baghdad be willing to give up Kirkuk, with its rich oil resources, to an independent Kurdish nation state?

Kirkuk could become a volatile and contentious flashpoint if Iraq’s communities decide to draw lines in the dirt and break-up for good. That’s not to say that Iraq has been a success as a federal state. The fight the country is presently embroiled in is as much for its success as a viable nation state as it is against the dreaded Daesh. And while other contentious issues are being momentarily set aside due to the immediateness of the need to quash Daesh that remains the case. Which is why Baghdad has taken steps to abolish some of the more heavy-handed policies the former Prime Minister undertook in order to salvage a durable federal Iraqi polity.

Two recently planned trenches indicate the nature of the crossroads on which the Iraqi polity is presently situated. The first trench was being dug along a small part (approximately 10 miles) of the Iraqi Kurdish regions frontier with Syria in order to prevent infiltration of Iraq’s relatively porous 600-mile frontier with that war-wrecked state (the PKK-affiliated Syrian Kurds accused the KRG at the time of blockading them). That’s an interesting one because it’s a trench on Kurdish territory which conforms to the internationally recognized borders of Iraq as they exist today, at least in theory.

The second trench is for equally practical purposes which largely pertain to security. This planned 45km long trench on the other hand is aimed at shielding the Shi’ite Islamic holy city of Karbala from attacks by groups like Daesh. And given the fact that it cuts off one part of Iraq from another some Sunnis are claiming this reeks of sectarian partition and is a concerted effort on the part of the Shia to secure control over as much of central Iraq as they can before any potential break-up or partitioning. These accusations are of course denied, the Shia see this proposed trench as a merely temporary protective barrier which will remain in place until Daesh is uprooted from the Sunni-majority western province of Anbar – an undertaking which one is happy to hear may transpire in the near future. Which is a good turnaround considering a lot of those tribesmen were poorly armed and were not integrated into the broader federal security forces before Daesh emerged and began seizing Anbar territory killing hundreds of Sunni Arabs in the process.

One hopes that if there is another trench dug in Iraq it will be dug along Anbar’s frontier with Syria after Daesh’s defeat there by a combined task force consisting of Shia Iraqis working in tandem with their Sunni allies against a common enemy in their country. Furthermore one hopes that the Kirkuk dispute doesn’t get bloody and that the Iraqi state doesn’t fragment into morasses of cross-communal violence as a result of Daesh’s onslaughts. Because if it does then Daesh, even in defeat, will have succeeded in driving a deathblow of a wedge in Iraq’s state and society.

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