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IRAQ ATA CROSSROADS
Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.
—
Mary Shelley,
Frankenstein
B
ack in December 2014, Casa Árabe and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung held the seminar
Iraq at a crossroads
, with the participation of a heterogeneous group of Middle East
analysts and observers. A year before we had organized, with the participation of
FRIDE, another important seminar on the state of affairs in Syria. It is clear that both
countries have had their fates sealed by the dismemberment of state institutions and the
power vacuum spurred by autocratic rule and badly planned foreign interventions.
A pause is needed to reflect upon the major mistakes of the 2003 US-led invasion and
its aftermath: the marginalization of Sunni Arabs, the failure to “win hearts and minds”
(George W. Bush
dixit
) and the collapse of Iraq as a nation-state however artificial its
colonial origins and binding might have been. Enter the rise of violent jihadism, Al-Qaida
and its newest brethren Islamic State (Daesh, ISIL, ISIS or simply IS): a non-state actor
which wraps Iraq and Syria in its utopian political project, a pseudo-caliphate that embraces
Iraq and the Levant with savage and post-modern methods and an ability to attract, absorb
and transform new members.
After the fall of Mosul in June 2014 and the self-proclamation of the IS caliphate, the
situation has become more alarming than ever. The forces that are playing and redrawing
the lines in the sand will remain in Iraq and Syria for years to come, if not decades. The
international order inherited from the First World War is all but history. Neighbors such
as Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are – and should be – extremely wary of IS expansion.
Lebanon is also in the eye of the storm. The profusion of non-state actors is mind-boggling,
just like their complex relations with Gulf countries, Russia, the US and Iran, to name