It’s hard to imagine that U.S. policy in the Middle East, which has helped make a shambles of the region over the past six decades, could get much worse. But developments during the past week demonstrate that it has the potential to do so. Hawks in both parties are shocked (shocked!) that Iraq shows unmistakable signs of coming apart along ethno-religious lines. But critics of the hawkish lobbying for U.S. military intervention in the period leading up to the invasion and occupation in 2003 warned that the move had major destabilizing implications, and that a fractured Iraq was a likely outcome. Early this year, I renewed those warnings, arguing that multiple developments indicated that Iraq was heading toward fragmentation.
As in the earlier case of Yugoslavia, the wonder is not that an artificial country like Iraq (cobbled together by British colonial officials from three disparate provinces of the old Ottoman Empire) is coming apart. The wonder is that it held together for so long.
Rather than accept an outcome contrary to the unrealistic wishes of U.S. policymakers, there is a surge of calls for Washington to “do something” to prevent Sunni militant insurgents from continuing their string of military victories over Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shiite-controlled government. Although the Obama administration has wisely ruled-out putting large numbers of U.S. boots on the ground, air strikes and a limited deplyment of troops apparently remain an option. That would be an ill-advised move, since it would risk again entangling the United States in Iraq’s bitter, convoluted political and religious rivalries.