Take our user survey and make your voice heard.
The chaos and violence gripping the Middle East are not likely to evaporate even if the forces arrayed against the Islamic State group manage to crush the brutal army and its drive to establish an Islamic caliphate in Iraq and Syria and beyond.
Why?
The national structures and boundaries created by European colonial powers after the Ottoman Empire was dismantled at the end of World War I are collapsing or already have disintegrated. That has unleashed powerful centrifugal forces that are melting the glue that was holding together increasingly antagonistic religious and ethnic populations.
The mix of Muslims — Sunnis, Shiites, Alawites — Christians and the big ethnic Kurdish populations in the north of both Syria and Iraq are a stew of ancient discontent, sectarian frustration and flagrant injustice.
Those social explosives were detonated by the upheaval unleashed by the U.S. war in Iraq and the civil war in Syria.
"The level of damage that has been done by the United States in Iraq and the civil war in Syria is probably irreparable," said Wayne Merry, senior associate at the American Foreign Policy Council.
In Iraq, Saddam Hussein and his fellow Sunni Muslims — a minority in that country — ruled brutally over the majority Shiite Muslims. The United States removed Saddam and eradicated his Baath Party structures, most famously the army. Washington then oversaw the establishment of a new government that is fundamentally controlled by the Shiites. That new structure subsequently disregarded the needs and rights of the Sunnis.
While the U.S. military still controlled the country, radical Sunnis came together under the banner of al-Qaida in Iraq in a force arrayed against American forces, moderate Sunnis and the Shiites majority. Shiite militias formed to attack from the other side and a civil war erupted. That was only tamped down when Washington instituted the surge of more troops and began paying Sunni tribal leaders and their fighters to turn their guns on fellow Sunnis in al-Qaida.
With the departure of U.S. forces in 2011, al-Qaida regrouped in the Sunni regions of Iraq and became the Islamic State group, the terrorist organization that also spread into the void created in neighboring Syria by the civil war there, now in its fifth year. Estimates have put IS control of territory as much as one third of both countries. Particularly important is the terror organization's control over the cities like Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq.
For months, the United States has bombed IS positions with some success and now France and Russia have joined that effort. Russia turned its attention to IS after a bomb, claimed by the Islamic State group, brought down a Russian airliner over Egypt. The French reacted after the IS attacks in Paris.
Military and intelligence experts had said, before the airliner bombing, that Russia had primarily targeted opponents of Syrian leader Bashar Assad who are not allied with IS but deeply involved in the civil war, fighting to overthrow Assad. The Obama administration insists Assad must be removed. Russia and Iran say he must be part of a political solution, at least temporarily. Regional powers Saudi Arabia and Turkey want him gone.
Many analysts saw Russian involvement in Syria as an attempt to save the Assad regime. Syria was a last outpost of Russian influence in the Middle East, home to Russia's only Mediterranean port and a big customer for Russian weapons.
The appeal of IS in Syria grows from the same root as it does in Iraq. And that is the sense of Sunni disenfranchisement. In Syria, unlike Iraq, it is longstanding. Assad is an Alawite Muslim, a subset of Shiism. He and his father before him ruled brutally over the Sunni majority in Syria, much as Saddam killed and brutalized the Shiite majority in Iraq.
And none of that deals with the complication added to the chaos in both countries by the ethnic Kurdish drive for a homeland. The Kurds have big populations in northern Iraq, Syria and Iran. And they have periodically been at war with Turkey, where they live in huge numbers in the southeast of that country. The Kurds have been the strongest American partners in the fight against IS, battling — often with significant success — as a U.S.-allied ground force against IS.
They also have created a virtually autonomous, self-governed region in Iraq and control significant Iraqi oil reserves. U.S. backing for the Kurds puts the United States at odds both with NATO ally Turkey, which is also an enemy of Assad in Syria and the Shiite-dominated U.S.-backed Iraqi government in Baghdad.
Former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that a military victory over IS will not end the chaos in the Middle East unless the United States, other countries in the region, Russia, Europe and Iran join together to create a "platform of political stability."
But how can such a platform be created in a region that has been unable to overcome a 1,300-year schism in Islam, the Kurdish drive to create a country that the ethnic group has never had and the attendant complications mixed in by a plethora of other religious and ethnic minorities. The defeat of IS, if it happens, will not solve those deep and underlying divisions.
A final political solution likely will require the resettlement of large populations driven from their home territories by the Iraq war, the Syrian civil conflict and the expansion of IS. It will require compromises that haven't been made for centuries. It is a huge mission that will take a long time to accomplish — if it ever can be.
© Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
9 Comments
Login to comment
kcjapan
Mr. Hurst confirms the long understood Pottery Barn rule AWOL Bush violated. Except, 'you break it, you bought it', doesn't apply to the GOP Shia-Tea. Here's the American political party who brought ruin to the region and a disastrous bill AWOL Bush left for the next ten generations to pay for.
If this is an example of Republican "management" the possibility of a vapid Carson, or adolescent bully Rump the Great, seem the reconfirmation of how wrong headed and shockingly irresponsible the political philosophies of these war profiteers are.
Obviously Mr. Hurst's insight, "how can such a platform be created in a region that has been unable to overcome a 1,300-year schism in Islam", further condemns the GOP Shia-Tea in both their ignorance and moral turpitude.
Clearly the drums of the neo-con war profiteers silenced reason and the near and dear friends of AWOL Bush and Cheney made a dandy profit. Will Americans again return these crack pots and arrogant narcissists to control foreign policy? The world should pray not.
For now, how many generations will pay for AWOL's crimes that unleashed the specter of radically primitive religious madmen? Will Bush and Cheney ever face prosecution for their crimes?
Still, Bush assures the public he sleeps well on the graves of the children of the Middle East.
How many Americans are ready to do the same with a new GOP Shia-Tea administration possessed with religious extremists of their own and war profiteers salivating at the prospect of Americans paying more blood and treasure to achieve no demonstrable benefit except to the bank accounts of the Republican coconspirators?
shonanbb
Boundaries need to be redrawn and a lot of the conflict will go away. Sort of like moving people to the other side of the tracks in America.
nath
Allow me to fix the article title:
Mideast chaos, violence won't end
The place is a mess. And no amount of western meddling will fix it. Western meddling has only ever made it worse, and only paints a target on the back of the west.
Get the west out. Leave the Middle East to the Middle East.
MarkG
Israel is heavily supported by the United States. Not that I agree with that but Israel will not be left to fend for itself in the ME by the US. The rest is about oil resources within themselves which would disrupt global supply. Then the Suez Canal cannot be threatened or controlled.
Doo-Bop
These groups (IS, Al Qaeda,...) are all proxies of the west, specifically created to cause chaos. As long as we do not address the root causes on top, the problem will always return, but with a different name. And no, the root cause is not Islam, or even “radical” Islam. It’s like a magic trick, if you focus your attention where the magician wants you to focus, you will always get fooled. In this case, they want you to focus on Islam…
JeffLee
The Ottoman Empire collapsed spectacularly after the end of WW1 in a swirl of genocide and misery, There wasn't much to "dismantle."
"European colonial powers..."
The Europeans didn't take colonies there at the time, and indeed they didnt want any, so this term is misleading. They needed to restore some degree of administration in the vacuum left by the Ottomans and they also wanted Western friendly states and stability so they could develop the oil assets.
The "colonial power" were the Muslim Ottomans, who created the whole mess by deciding to join Germany in a horrific war, and in a bid to take territory in southern Russia. But let's not blame them for anything. Oh, no.
PTownsend
Is this what you're disputing? History can be interpreted in many ways, but I've never read a historian who didn't say that 'European colonial powers' (especially the UK and France) were not the ones who divided up what had been areas of the Ottoman Empire. Most of the Arab states were under Ottoman control prior to the defeat of the Central Powers (blame Germany and Austria and the Ittomans) and most were then put under European nation's administration. Syria and Lebanon were placed under French control.
Many historians have written that at one time a reason for the UK wanting to set up the state of Israel was to have it be administered by the UK to ensure greater protection for British territories, especially India. In my opinion there are few problems anywhere in the world that can't be traced back to colonial invasions. The problems that created WW1 and resulted after the war persist.
bass4funk
Really? And how did they profit. Seems like Hillary and Obama are doing well financially as well, given the fact they are profiting from progressive left that are pouring millions into their parties and campaign to stay out of any conflict, even if it is detrimental to our livelihood in the long run.
Well, the sure don't want a *ussy for a president after this one is gone.
How many will pay for Obama's lack of will to capitulate and confront a growing ISIS with an established caliphate and NO matter what happens, this jerk will further endanger us by forcing the country to accept thousands of refugees that are Muslim and with definitely some that are radical that will become sleeper cells until the moment is right to strike.
And Obama as well for all the Christians and Yazidis he failed and was unwilling to help.
But America really wants to go that route on electing another president that thinks and cares about himself and his ideology, his Nobel and his seat on Fallon's couch and just leave all of these perplexing problems to the next president to sort out. But in hindsight, we don't have to stress out about this man anymore when he leaves the WH for the very last time.
JaneM
Pray tell us what the “root cause” is in your opinion. Please enlighten us because I think most of the people here are getting tired with your implying that there is some grand conspiracy going on. Who is the conspirator and what does he want? Why does he keep our attention on radical Islam by sending radicals to kill innocents throughout the world?