Final fallout fromWar on Iraq — Iran and Shi'a worries

I think at least a small part of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment had to know, in advance of March 2003, that an invasion of Iraq with the amount of troops we were using had some chance of empowering Iran.

While not all Shi'ites, especially not many in Iraq, look to Tehran for guidance or marching orders, many in the smaller Gulf states between Saudi Arabia and Iran may have at least some leaning that way. And, Riyadh worries that "some leaning" could increase. The map below illustrates this well.

The Sunni-Shi'ite division in the Middle East underscores Saudi Arabian fears of Iran.

And, recent events prove this out.

Saudi Shi'ites protest, support Bahrain brethren.

One Saudi Shi'ite activist said hundreds attended several protests including one in the eastern region's main Shi'ite center, Qatif, to show their backing for Bahraini Shi'ites who are protesting against the Sunni royal family.

Bahrain encampment in capital has a Shi'ite angle.

Saudi Arabia has voiced concern that if Bahrain is taken over by Shiites, the country would become a satellite state of Iran. But the crackdown may only increase protesters’ sympathy for the Shiite-ruled country, some observers said Wednesday.

More here on Saudi worries about Shi'ites driving this all, and, by extension, Saudi worries about Iran. Here's details on it's arrest of a a Shi'ite cleric last month that triggered this.

Kuwait debates sending troops to Bahrain.

Notice a common thread?

Meanwhile, just because Iraqi Shi'ites don't take orders from Tehran doesn't mean that, to play an anti-American bank shot, someone like Moqtada al-Sadr can't throw gas on the fire.

So, the bottom line? Bush surely had somebody warning him about this.

The neoconservatives behind the throne, with their even more insular thought, would have poo-poohed such worries. Well, democracy promotion had been "problematic" since the Islamic Salvation Front won the 1991 Algerian elections. So, even the neocons had no excuse.

Even if there's no connection to Iran, Shi'ites can exploit that idea. And, given their varying degrees of repression in Gulf states, they will.

Obama is kind of getting hoist, but it's on Bush's petard.

Tripartite Iraq? Bipartite? Or still unified, with new boundaries?

Abu Aardvark’s excellent article on what appears to be the final collapse of Sunni participation in the government of Iraq got me to thinking about what the longer-term results might be.

I know that a number of pundits, some historians and even a few American politicians have bandied about the idea of a tripartite Iraq, on Shi’a/Sunni Kurd lines. It’s usually presented as if this were the only realistic option (by politicians and pundits), or the most likely actual option (by historians).

In any case, a tripartite Iraq vs. current Iraq are presented as the only two outcomes, usually. But, the Sufi philosopher Idries Shah once said, “There are never just two sides to any situation,” and that is the case here.

For example, what if Sunnis, Shi’as, Iranians and Turks combine to do a partition of Poland move on the Kurdish state? Then, we’re down to a bipartite Iraq.

Or, what if Kurds and Shia’s stay together, with a Sunni area making a formal declaration of independence? Then we have a bipartite Iraq.

Or, what if the Saudis get so frustrated they issue an invitation to the Sunni area to let itself be taken under the Saudi wing? To appease Bush, they could make this as innocuous as possible, but then complete the annexation during the heat of the presidential election season or just after, confident they can then get away with it. Then, we have a still unified, but shrunken, Iraq, with an enlarged Saudia Arabia now having even more of both oil reserves and Falafist fundamentalists in its midst.

More on why it’s civil wars in Iraq, and where’s Teheran on this?

As noted just yesterday at the tail end of a New York Times story and already reported more than once ago by The Guardian, it appears Moqtada al-Sadr is losing control of his own militia into what is shaping up as inter-Shiite civil war in the Iraqi south.

I’m sure part of the reason the American MSM hasn’t reported this more is that this is largely in the British/allied sector of Iraq. Nonetheless, all Americans who regularly follow the continued devolution in Iraq know who al-Sadr is, and what this portends. Combine this with the Sunni-Shiite fighting in the center, and the war of all against all that seems to be growing in Mosul and Kirkuk ― and which started when we pulled troops out of their in a futile effort to establish once-and-for-all law and order in Baghdad ― all point to the rise of civil wars in the plural, not civil war in the singular, in Iraq. This is like the post-colonial pullout in parts of sub-Saharan Africa writ even larger.

Note: A new Reuters story claims al-Sadr is still in control of his Mehdi Army.)

Everybody talks about “Iran, Iran, Iran” in the Sunni-Shiite dustup. But in the likely-growing intra-Shiite squabbles, which horse or horses does Teheran back? Or does it decide to hold back for right now?