Iraq: Out of the desert into Mosul (closed)

[JWing]

Here's a link to my latest article on the origins of the ethnosectarian quota system in Iraq. The country is going through a political as well as a security crisis right now. A new candidate for premier has been named Haider Abadi from Dawa/State of Law and many are wondering how much different or the same he will be from Maliki. That ignores the large structural barriers that the Iraqi govt faces one of which is the ethnosectarian quotas which divide up the govt not by competence but by loyalty to parties. Many blame the U.S. and specifically the CPA for creating these quotas, but their origins are actually with the anti-Saddam opposition movement in the 1990s that created this system.

[KingJaja]

Here's a link to my latest article on the origins of the ethnosectarian quota system in Iraq. The country is going through a political as well as a security crisis right now. A new candidate for premier has been named Haider Abadi from Dawa/State of Law and many are wondering how much different or the same he will be from Maliki. That ignores the large structural barriers that the Iraqi govt faces one of which is the ethnosectarian quotas which divide up the govt not by competence but by loyalty to parties. Many blame the U.S. and specifically the CPA for creating these quotas, but their origins are actually with the anti-Saddam opposition movement in the 1990s that created this system.

Thank you very much for your wonderful article, but if you overlay ancient societies with a very recent artificial state - this is what you get, no "ifs", no "buts".

A nation is like a family, you cannot just group random people, insist they adopt a common flag & anthem - and then expect them to behave like a nation. That is the problem with a lot of the "nations" that were created post WW2 (after the fall of European empires).

Iraq's fundamental problem is this; it is not a nation. Saddam could have held it together by extreme violence (or another dictator could), but absent that, there was never going to be a basis for nationhood. Shias were smarting under decades of oppression by Sunnis and Sunnis weren't going to take lightly to their diminished status. Kurds had a long-term project - and it wasn't Iraq, it was an independent Kurdish state.

This kind of ethno-sectarianism isn't limited to the Middle-east - it is one of Africa's primary problems - a consequence of poorly thought out "states". You'll see how Boko Haram (and other Sahelian terror groups) bring out the same ethno-sectarian tensions you noticed in Iraq to the open - keep tuned.

Let me add that the great advantage the Far East had over Africa and the Middle East is this - colonial borders coincided more or less with ancient/related societies - there was a historical continuum, not a "disjunction" - not the kind of "cut and join" states one sees in the Middle East/Africa - for example; the Vietnamese had a strong identity, the French didn't create a "Vietnamese identity".