Civil War in Iraq

With all the talk of civil war looming in Iraq, there's been little discussion of what that civil war could actually entail. I addressed just that somewhat in an earlier post, but this article by Steven Weisman in the NY Times paints a picture of a worst-case scenario even more troubling than anything I'd imagined:

The greatest fear of leaders throughout the Middle East is that an unrestrained civil war, if it ever comes to that, would not only give birth to warring Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish enclaves inside Iraq, but that the violence could also spread unpredictably through the region.

It might well incite sectarian conflicts in neighboring countries and, even worse, draw these countries into taking sides in Iraq itself. Iran would side with the Shiites. It is already allied with the biggest Shiite militias, some of whose members seemed to be involved in the retaliatory attacks on Sunnis after the Shiite shrine bombing last week.

And Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait would feel a need to defend Sunnis or perhaps to create buffer states for themselves along Iraq's borders. Turkey might also feel compelled to move in, to protect Iraq's Turkoman minority against a Kurdish state in the north.

In events closer to Iraq, more than 15 years of civil war in Lebanon ended when Syrian troops took on the role of reinforcing a peculiar arrangement that distributes certain high offices among the country's sectarian groups...but Iraq poses a threat that dwarfs these problems. The pivot of what could become a regional conflict is almost certainly Iran. Shiite leaders close to Iran won the Iraqi election in December, and although American and many Iraqi leaders defend their Iraqi nationalist bona fides, a civil war would almost certainly drive them to seek help from Iran. That stirs Sunni Arab fears of Iranian dominance in the region.

"What you have in Iraq is not just a society coming apart like Yugoslavia or Congo," said Vali R. Nasr, a professor of national affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. "What is at stake is not just Iraq's stability but the balance of power in the region."

Historians looking at such a prospect would see a replay of the Shiite-Sunni divide that has effectively racked the Middle East since the eighth century and extended through the rival Safavid and Ottoman Empires in modern Mesopotamia and finally into the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980's. This time, however, Iran's suspected nuclear ambitions could accelerate a nuclear arms race, with Saudi Arabia likely to lead the way among Sunni nations.

Whatever role Iran plays, many experts see another danger from a civil war in which American forces are forced to the sidelines in Iraq's angry Sunni areas. Those areas would almost certainly become safe havens for terrorist groups posing a long-term threat to other Arab countries and the West, especially the United States and Israel.

"You can be sure that Al Qaeda will set up shop in the Sunni areas, just like they did in the Afghan civil war," said Kenneth M. Pollack, director of research at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution.

It's clear that were Iraq to descend into outright civil war, other countries in the Middle East would seek to expand their influence over the outcome in an effort to produce an Iraq that is friendly or even amenable to them. In that sense the conflict would not be like the war in Yugoslavia, which was relatively isolated from outside influence beyond efforts to stop the war for humanitarian reasons. And it's easy to imagine that Al Qaeda or affiliated terrorist groups would take advantage of the chaos to attack American soldiers or attempt to create an Islamic theocracy. But I had not considered the possibility that war in Iraq could spark violence in other countries in the Middle East as well, though history apparently suggests as much. Nor had I considered the possibility of conflict among the Shiites of Iraq:

Mr. Pollack cautions that a civil war could prove especially painful for the Shiites. There is no reason, he says, to assume that they won't fight among themselves. The three major Shiite movements each have militias. Sometimes they have clashed. Iran, he said, would just as soon avoid a violent fragmentation along those lines.

The question that is not being addressed enough is, what would the consequences be for the United States if our soldiers leave in the midst of a civil war? It seems clear to me that our presence will not be reduced completely to nothing for some time; years, if not decades even, as there will always be a role for "advisors." But if we are no longer playing a significant role in Iraq after a draw-down in forces, then it's hard to see how we can significantly influence the outcome of a civil war. And every one of the possibilities listed above for what could happen would have repurcussions for us as well, from general instability in the Middle East driving up the cost of oil, to increased Iranian influence in the Middle East, to the creation of a safe haven for Al Qaeda terrorists. It's evident that if civil war breaks out in full our troops may not have the ability to contain it. But it seems just as clear that if any of the truly dire outcomes of a civil war come to pass, we will be substantially worse off now than we ever were before we invaded in the first place.