Clash Over Regional Power Spurs Iraq’s Sectarian Rift

[alp227]

BAQUBA, Iraq — The governor has fled this uneasy city. Half the members of the provincial council are camped out in northern Iraq, afraid to return to their offices. Peaceful protesters fill the dusty streets, though just days ago angrier crowds blockaded the highways with burning tires and shattered glass.

All of this because the local government here in northeastern Diyala Province recently dared to raise a simple but explosive question, one that is central to the unrest now surging through Iraq’s shaky democracy: Should a post-American Iraq exist as one unified nation, or will it split into a loose confederation of islands unto themselves?

A dire political crisis exploded in Baghdad this week, after an arrest warrant was issued against the Sunni Arab vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi, accusing him of running a death squad. But years of accumulated anger and disenfranchisement are now driving some of the country’s largely Sunni Arab provinces to seek greater control over their security and finances by distancing themselves from Iraq’s Shiite leaders.

Many Sunni leaders have rallied to the cause while top Shiites in Baghdad have fought the efforts, aggravating the sectarian divisions among the country’s political elite.

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/24/world/middleeast/iraqi-sunnis-and-shiites-clash-over-regional-power.html?pagewanted=all

[Old and In the Way]

1. You can go back to DU in 2002/2003 where this very argument against invading was made.

A lot of people understood that Iraq was an amalgam of 3 distinct cultures - Sunni's, Shia's, and Kurds. The only thing keeping this state together was a secular authoritarian regime that kept the factions separated. By invading and removing the Hussein government, we would create a power vacuum that could fracture the state of Iraq into 3 regions that would essentially become autonomous regions and buffer zones for Saudi Arable, Iran, and Turkey. We've managed to keep the facade of a democratic government and state stability in place as long as US troops were in the country to provide the secular muscle for the government - essentally performing the same function as Hussein's army. But once we were out, the real fault lines would crack open. Sadly, I think it's starting already.

[bemildred]

2. Gee, who could have predicted this? nt