If the ouster of Saddam Hussain was not enough to spawn political instability in Iraq the Syrian civil war has done it by throwing up new claimants to seat of power in Baghdad. A ragtag al Qaeda affiliate conceived by Al-Zarqawi, and one of many anti-Assad regime rebel groups, Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), has emerged over the last couple of years, particularly since the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, as a new Arab state in the Middle East - an al Qaeda dream fulfilled. From Aleppo in Syria to Fallujah in Iraq it controls and governs a vast swath of territory, its further expansion almost given as its fighters have taken over Iraq's second biggest city Mosul, captured oil terminal Kirkuk, overrun Saddam's birthplace Tikrit, and are knocking the door of Sammara just two hours' drive from Baghdad. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is too busy in consolidating gains of his third-term electoral victory, is hardly a match of war-hardened ISIL chief Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi who is said to have enforced Islamic legal and welfare legal system in the territories under his control. The question whether he will stop at Sammara has no easy answer. Thanks to American training the Iraqi forces are more attuned to fight counter-insurgency battles - no wonder then it has failed to retrieve Fallujah from the militants in the last six months or so. The ISIL forces are now a fully equipped battlefront challenge and no more a hit and run guerrilla outfit, its fighting prowess of late was greatly buttressed by induction of a war bounty of some 200 armoured vehicles and considerable amount of other war material left behind by the Iraqi army as it fled Mosul without giving the invading ISIL fighters a matching response. Given that the territories captured by the ISIL forces so far are principally Sunni-populated the local resistance was almost non-existent. But from Sammara onward along the highway to Baghdad up to Basra it is the Shia-dominated landscape and power base of prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, which should not be expected to be a ripe fruit to fall in the lap of the ISIL forces. There is therefore a dire threat of Iraq being divided along the sectarian lines - always a feared possibility effectively neutered by Saddam Hussein but triggered by Americans' profound lack of understanding of Iraq's demographic complexity.
Perhaps, the al-Maliki regime would find it a better option to have a smaller but a compact friction-free Iraq than to live in a state of permanent ferment with Sunni Arab and Kurd always trying to revive and restore Saddam-vintage non-Shia rule. Reports are that ISIL forces were given a kind of safe passage by the Kurdistan Autonomous Region government on their way to Mosul and that Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi is believed to be receiving blessings of private donors in the neighbouring Arab states. But even when in the ISIL's victories the Sunni Arabs see vindication of their political aspirations the development is yet pregnant with a number of dangerous unknowns. For one, al-Baghdadi's rapid ascendency is bound to be contested by other Jihadist outfits, particularly the al Qaeda, a possibility reflected from their rivalry in Syria. Then there is the question of moderate Arab monarchies' reaction to the birth and existence of a radical regime in their close neighbourhood. There is also the challenge of Islamic State of Iraq and Levant graduating from the status of a fighting force to a functioning state encompassing lands inhibited by relatively educated populations. But before the ISIL firmly plants its feet on the ground it has got to confront the Turkish annoyance over kidnapping of its Mosul consulate staff and detention of transport vehicles now in adverse possession of ISIL fighters. Likewise, the ISIL will find Kurds as difficult neighbours, a matching challenge given the Kurds' historic fight for their autonomous status. Therefore, there is every possibility of the ISIL not succeeding as a politically viable state as much as a fighting force, a sure prescription for yet another long spell of uncertainty in the land of the Tigris and the Euphrates.
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