Irresolvable

The steep increase in fuel prices, coming in the midst of a general inflationary surge, will hurt all of us.

The latest upward trend in oil prices is a global phenomenon. It is due largely to uncertainties created by the deteriorating situation in Iraq. Armed units identified with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) overrun a major oil refinery and threaten the capital of Baghdad.

Militant groups, as usual, reacted to the price hike with threats of protests. Since the price spike is global, therefore externally induced, the protests will be futile.

One militant leader, interviewed on television, offered the false argument that since the trouble was in Iraq and the bulk of our oil imports are from Saudi Arabia there was no reason for oil prices to rise. This man is in serious need of education about how the world works.

The pricing for all commodities, oil included, is set in the trading markets, not in the individual refineries. This is the reason why Iran, a country that exports a lot of oil and imports all of its fuel needs because it has no modern refineries, feels the crunch as much as everybody else.

The fighting units of the ISIS, now marauding through a large swath of Iraq, demonstrated such brutality that they were banished by the Al Qaeda no less. At its core, the ISIS is composed of jihadists that had been fighting the Assad regime in Syria. When a ceasefire was forged there, they began to spill back into Iraq, overrunning cities and forcing the Iraqi army on its heels.

The resurgent conflict in Iraq is not a new one. It draws from sectarian animosities dating back centuries.

Most analysts are convinced that this new round of conflict will begin to abate only after the incompetent and sectarian regime led by Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad is deposed. It is not just the Shi’ite regime of al-Maliki that faces dissolution. Iraq itself will probably be dissolved in this round of violence.

The Kurdish Autonomous Region in northern Iraq announced the other day readiness to declare an independent state. The idea of a Kurdish state finds support from unlikely quarters. Turkey expressed readiness to support a Kurdish state, even as this country has been fighting a war with its own Kurdish minority for years. An independent Kurdish state will provide a buffer zone between them and the chaos expected to engulf Iraq for many years to come.

Ironically, as well, the beleaguered al-Maliki government, supported by the US, now finds additional support from Iran. The Islamic state is anxious to protect the Iraqi Shi’ites from genocide likely to be perpetrated by the ISIS militants. Shi’ites are the majority in Iraq; Sunnis a slight minority.

The old fault lines between Shi’ites and Sunnis reappeared with a vengeance the past few years of war and chaos in the region.

The sectarian divide dates back to 632 AD, the year the Prophet Muhammad died. His followers were divided between those who wanted the Prophet’s son-in-law Ali to inherit the mantle of leadership (Shi’ites) and those who wanted to determine the leader on the basis of consensus (Sunni).

Ali eventually assumed the caliphate. In 661 AD, however, he was assassinated. Fighting soon broke out between Shi’ites and Sunnis. That fighting never really ceased through the centuries.

About 90% of Muslims today are Sunni, the sect predominant through the centuries of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. The remaining 10% are Shi’ite, concentrated in the old sphere of influence of the Persian Empire.

After WWII, the British and the French drew maps arbitrarily establishing the modern nations of Syria and Iraq, paying no heed to the tribal, ethnic and sectarian boundaries. Over the next decade, repressive regimes mimicking the secular, heavily militarized regime in Turkey after its own revolution earlier in the 20th century.

Syria was ruled repressively by the Ba’ath party led by the elder Assad, supported mainly by the Shi’ite Allawite minority. Iraq, for its part, was ruled for a long time by the Ba’athists under Saddam Hussein, supported by the Sunni minority.

Ruling with iron fists, both Assad (father and son) in Syria and Hussein in Iraq kept a lid on sectarian tensions and tried to foist the idea of nationhood above tribal and sectarian identities. When the US invasion deposed the Hussein regime and when a brutal civil loosened the Assad regime in Syria, sectarian tensions simply flowed to the surface.

It is the common Shi’ite heritage that explains why Tehran and the Hezbollah in Lebanon support the Assad regime. It is the Sunni identity that animates much of the opposition to Assad in Damascus as well as the al-Maliki government in Baghdad. In this age-old sectarian clash, the jihadist ISIS drew a following. The fundamentalist movement, with its vision of establishing a new caliphate, now holds sway over large swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Washington is pressuring al-Maliki to reestablish a more “inclusive” regime (translation: one that accommodates the Sunnis rather than shuns them). It might be too late for that. The only forces that could stop the ISIS onslaught are militias inspired by Shi’ite military leaders – and probably a round force sent in by Iran.

It is now granted that the deeply rooted sectarian conflict in this region will abate only after both Syria and Iraq dissipate as nations. The old colonial map cannot persist. The boundaries will have to be redrawn to follow the jagged divisions between sects and tribes.

Whatever new boundaries appear, they will alleviate (but not eradicate) the sectarian tensions.