This week in diplomatic and military history: March 9

In the past decade, Baghdad and Iraq as a whole have been subjected to invasion, destruction, and sectarian violence. Most recently the region has had to deal with the rise of the self-described Islamic State and their attempt to establish a caliphate in the region. Following the fall of Saddam Hussein, Iraq plunged into chronic sectarian violence, attracting substantial numbers of foreign jihadists. While the toppling of the Saddam regime explains the sectarian violence today, such violence can be seen as far back as the Fall of Baghdad in March of 1917. By examining the expulsion of the Turks and the subsequent disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, one can understand more clearly the chronic sectarian violence gripping Iraq today. An understanding of this past can offer guidance and further narrow the West’s mission in the region. The West’s role today is to ensure that there are strategies that take into consideration the ethno-religious diversity in the region in order to avoid further mismanagement.

In August 1916, military officials in London took command of operations against the Ottoman Empire in Iraq and the surrounding region. Lieutenant General Sir Stanley Maude used troops released from Gallipoli to begin a new British push towards Baghdad. By March 11, 1917, British forces had defeated Turkish installments and Baghdad fell under British military jurisdiction. This was a remarkable turnaround for the British military and their success continued into neighboring Syria. By the end of World War I, most of the Ottoman lands outside of Turkey were under British control.

Following World War I, British rule was essentially a colonial attempt to build the nation of Iraq. Under Ottoman rule, Iraq, and the surrounding region, was organized into provinces with loosely defined borders. British colonial authorities insisted on reconfiguring the provinces into sovereign nation states with clearly demarcated boundaries. These boundaries were established without consideration to pre-existing territorial divisions. Rather, the boundaries were demarcated based on the political climate in Europe immediately following World War I. This posed a major problem because the provinces established under Ottoman rule were extremely unique in their ethno-religious make-up. The British attempt to redefine such boundaries stimulated ethnic antagonism and political unrest.

The newly established British Iraq contained three major ethno-religious groups:  Shi’a Muslims, Sunni Muslims, and the Kurds, who were all forced to reside in a single country and expected to operate as a sovereign nation. This environment eventually led to ethno-religious cooperation through Saddam Hussein’s oppressive Ba’athist Party state. However, following the invasion of Iraq by coalition forces in 2003 and the toppling of the Hussein regime, these ethno-religious divisions were unleashed again. They were evident in the sectarian violence that ensued between Shi’a Muslims comprising 55-60% of the population and Sunni Muslims comprising 18-20% of the population. Shi’a militias and Sunni extremists began engaging not only with each other but also with coalition forces.

As violence increased during the coalition invasion, moves by the Bush administration such as dismantling the armed forces because of their previous loyalty to the Ba’athists exacerbated the sectarian violence. With the armed forces disbanded, a violent insurgency ensued which divided itself along ethno-religious lines. The two major ethno-religious groups fighting were Sunni and Shi’a Muslims. A strategy needed to be implemented, which understood the ethno-religious divisions in Iraq drawn by the British nearly a century earlier, before major decisions were made.  Governance by both the Americans and then the pro-Shi’a Iraqi government established by coalition forces government has resulted in continued instability in Iraq, and now Syria, coupled with the rise of the Sunni extremist group ISIS.

The Fall of Baghdad in 1917 and the creation of an Iraqi state by Britain highlighted a lack of understanding of the region that resulted in poor planning. In the post-World War I environment under the Ba’athist regime, there was relative stability among the ethno-religious groups. In 2003, with the coalition invasion of Iraq, stability crumbled and Iraq was once again in a sectarian phase. Unfortunately, the U.S. led coalition did not take into account British occupation strategy along ethno-religious lines after World War I, which was the original source of sectarian violence. During the planning stages of the 2003 invasion, officials still did not fully grasp the make-up of Iraq, particularly the differences between Sunni and Shi’a groups. This lack of understanding in the region resulted in consequences that were not anticipated in the planning stages of the war. Going forward, the West’s planning against ISIS and the Assad regime in Syria should include a deep and thorough understanding of theses varying ethno-religious divisions, not only to ameliorate sectarian violence, but to avoid the mistakes made by previous generations.

           

 Works Cited

Steel, Nigel. “First World War battles in the Middle East.” The Telegraph., 1 February. 2014. Web. 16 February 2015.

Tripp, Charles. “The Foreign Policy of Iraq.” The Foreign Policies of Middle East States. Ed. Raymond Hinnebusch and Anoushiravan Ehtesshami. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002. 167-192. Print.

Tyyebi, Hena. State Formation in Iraq, 1917-1991. Diss. Queen’s University, 2006. Ann Arbor : 2006. Web.