WASHINGTON: The chaos and violence gripping the Middle East are not likely to evaporate even if the forces arrayed against the Islamic State group manage to crush the brutal army and its drive to establish an Islamic caliphate in Iraq and Syria and beyond.
Why?
The national structures and boundaries created by European colonial powers after the Ottoman Empire was dismantled at the end of World War I are collapsing or already have disintegrated. That has unleashed powerful centrifugal forces that are melting the glue that was holding together increasingly antagonistic religious and ethnic populations.
The mix of Muslims — Sunnis, Shiites, Alawites — Christians and the big ethnic Kurdish populations in the north of both Syria and Iraq are a stew of ancient discontent, sectarian frustration and flagrant injustice.
Those social explosives were detonated by the upheaval unleashed by the US war in Iraq and the civil war in Syria.
"The level of damage that has been done by the United States in Iraq and the civil war in Syria is probably irreparable," said Wayne Merry, senior associate at the American Foreign Policy Council.
In Iraq, Saddam Hussein and his fellow Sunni Muslims — a minority in that country — ruled brutally over the majority Shiite Muslims. The United States removed Saddam and eradicated his Baath Party structures, most famously the army. Washington then oversaw the establishment of a new government that is fundamentally controlled by the Shiites. That new structure subsequently disregarded the needs and rights of the Sunnis.
While the US military still controlled the country, radical Sunnis came together under the banner of al-Qaida in Iraq in a force arrayed against American forces, moderate Sunnis and the Shiites majority. Shiite militias formed to attack from the other side and a civil war erupted. That was only tamped down when Washington instituted the surge of more troops and began paying Sunni tribal leaders and their fighters to turn their guns on fellow Sunnis in al-Qaida.
With the departure of US forces in 2011, al-Qaida regrouped in the Sunni regions of Iraq and became the Islamic State group, the terrorist organization that also spread into the void created in neighboring Syria by the civil war there, now in its fifth year. Estimates have put IS control of territory as much as one third of both countries. Particularly important is the terror organization's control over the cities like Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq.
For months, the United States has bombed IS positions with some success and now France and Russia have joined that effort. Russia turned its attention to IS after a bomb, claimed by the Islamic State group, brought down a Russian airliner over Egypt. The French reacted after the IS attacks in Paris.
Military and intelligence experts had said, before the airliner bombing, that Russia had primarily targeted opponents of Syrian leader Bashar Assad who are not allied with IS but deeply involved in the civil war, fighting to overthrow Assad. The Obama administration insists Assad must be removed. Russia and Iran say he must be part of a political solution, at least temporarily. Regional powers Saudi Arabia and Turkey want him gone.
Many analysts saw Russian involvement in Syria as an attempt to save the Assad regime. Syria was a last outpost of Russian influence in the Middle East, home to Russia's only Mediterranean port and a big customer for Russian weapons.
The appeal of IS in Syria grows from the same root as it does in Iraq. And that is the sense of Sunni disenfranchisement. In Syria, unlike Iraq, it is longstanding. Assad is an Alawite Muslim, a subset of Shiism. He and his father before him ruled brutally over the Sunni majority in Syria, much as Saddam killed and brutalized the Shiite majority in Iraq.
Why?
The national structures and boundaries created by European colonial powers after the Ottoman Empire was dismantled at the end of World War I are collapsing or already have disintegrated. That has unleashed powerful centrifugal forces that are melting the glue that was holding together increasingly antagonistic religious and ethnic populations.
The mix of Muslims — Sunnis, Shiites, Alawites — Christians and the big ethnic Kurdish populations in the north of both Syria and Iraq are a stew of ancient discontent, sectarian frustration and flagrant injustice.
Those social explosives were detonated by the upheaval unleashed by the US war in Iraq and the civil war in Syria.
"The level of damage that has been done by the United States in Iraq and the civil war in Syria is probably irreparable," said Wayne Merry, senior associate at the American Foreign Policy Council.
In Iraq, Saddam Hussein and his fellow Sunni Muslims — a minority in that country — ruled brutally over the majority Shiite Muslims. The United States removed Saddam and eradicated his Baath Party structures, most famously the army. Washington then oversaw the establishment of a new government that is fundamentally controlled by the Shiites. That new structure subsequently disregarded the needs and rights of the Sunnis.
While the US military still controlled the country, radical Sunnis came together under the banner of al-Qaida in Iraq in a force arrayed against American forces, moderate Sunnis and the Shiites majority. Shiite militias formed to attack from the other side and a civil war erupted. That was only tamped down when Washington instituted the surge of more troops and began paying Sunni tribal leaders and their fighters to turn their guns on fellow Sunnis in al-Qaida.
With the departure of US forces in 2011, al-Qaida regrouped in the Sunni regions of Iraq and became the Islamic State group, the terrorist organization that also spread into the void created in neighboring Syria by the civil war there, now in its fifth year. Estimates have put IS control of territory as much as one third of both countries. Particularly important is the terror organization's control over the cities like Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq.
For months, the United States has bombed IS positions with some success and now France and Russia have joined that effort. Russia turned its attention to IS after a bomb, claimed by the Islamic State group, brought down a Russian airliner over Egypt. The French reacted after the IS attacks in Paris.
Military and intelligence experts had said, before the airliner bombing, that Russia had primarily targeted opponents of Syrian leader Bashar Assad who are not allied with IS but deeply involved in the civil war, fighting to overthrow Assad. The Obama administration insists Assad must be removed. Russia and Iran say he must be part of a political solution, at least temporarily. Regional powers Saudi Arabia and Turkey want him gone.
Many analysts saw Russian involvement in Syria as an attempt to save the Assad regime. Syria was a last outpost of Russian influence in the Middle East, home to Russia's only Mediterranean port and a big customer for Russian weapons.
The appeal of IS in Syria grows from the same root as it does in Iraq. And that is the sense of Sunni disenfranchisement. In Syria, unlike Iraq, it is longstanding. Assad is an Alawite Muslim, a subset of Shiism. He and his father before him ruled brutally over the Sunni majority in Syria, much as Saddam killed and brutalized the Shiite majority in Iraq.
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