If Iraq wasn't on the brink of civil war before last month's bombing of the previously gold-domed Askariya Mosque in Samarra, which is sacred to Shi'ite Muslims, it certainly is now. The attack turned what was a low-intensity sectarian conflict hot, with media reports saying that Baghdad's central morgue alone recorded 1,300 Iraqis dead in four days of reprisal killings after the attack.
That increased violence between Arab Sunnis and Shi'ites has persisted, and fears are growing that civil war could draw Iraq's neighbors further into the conflict, or even spark a wider war. That fear was recently expressed by US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, who warned that if US troops pulled out, a regional conflict could result. Religious extremists could triumph, he said, and use Iraq as a base for expansion, while Persian Gulf oil supplies could be disrupted.
Khalilzad is hardly a disinterested party, so his motives bear scrutiny. But his belated observation that the United States had opened a Pandora's box in Iraq echoed the concerns of those who wanted the Ba'athist lid kept on to begin with.
With the lid nearly off, the incipient civil war is capsizing the failing Iraq project, complicating the formation of a government, turning the armed forces into just another militia, and transforming Iraq into a bigger, meaner version of the Lebanon of 1975-90.
War by proxy, or regional war? As it was in Lebanon, the civil conflict in Iraq is rooted in the genuine historical grievances of the country's basic communities. And as Lebanon did, Iraq is fast becoming a battleground for the competing interests of surrounding states. Yet because Iraq sits at the nexus of the world's largest petroleum reserves, far more more is at stake.
Experts believe that increased intervention by Iraq's neighbors is now inevitable.
"I think it's definite that they will become involved in the same way that they were in Lebanon, by proxy," said Dr Rosemary Hollis, the director of research at London's Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA). "They will support the factions that they feel the most affinity to, in part because those factions will need help and will come looking for it, but in part because they won't want their opponents to win."
Iraq's neighbors, particularly Iran, are already deeply enmeshed in the Iraqi maelstrom. And as the chaos mounts, they may be tempted to assert forcefully their economic interests and their stake in what political system eventually rises above the killing fields. Added to this are growing fears of the Sunni-Shi'ite divide igniting sectarian fires across the region, with either calls from the majority-Sunni states to protect the Iraqi Sunni minority, or sectarian tension in the Gulf states, many of which have large Shi'ite minorities (and a majority in Bahrain).
As a proxy war evolves, direct interventions are unlikely, according to Dr Bahgat Korany, the head of Middle East Studies at the American University of Cairo (AUC). "If the Americans don't want that, it will not happen," he said. "I can't imagine that troops from other countries will cross borders when you have 150,000-160,000 American troops there."
There have been consistent attempts by the US to secure Arab troops to aid the occupation, however, an outcome that could have myriad unforeseen consequences once those troops disembark. Informed sources said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on her recent visit to Cairo, made a strong pitch to persuade Egypt to send troops.
Ripples of chaos The predominant fear now in the region is the dismemberment of Iraq.
"If the whole state system unravels, if Iraq unravels and everybody has to choose inside Iraq - and there's no nationalist side - then everybody's state is in jeopardy," said Hollis. The neighbors are therefore caught between asserting influence to create a favorable political order and pushing so hard they force it apart. A Sunni-Shi'ite war could make this balancing act unsustainable.
A recent report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) captured this dilemma: "Should neighboring states conclude either that Shi'ite influence has become a strategic threat or that Iraq's breakup is inevitable, they are likely to take steps that will accelerate the country's disintegration ... a development in which, ironically, they have no interest."
The greatest danger of copycat sectarian warfare is in the Persian Gulf region, though there is as yet no sign of it. Shi'ite empowerment appears to be emboldening Shi'ite minorities, but not inspiring militancy. Korany of AUC cautions that the dynamic in these countries is different from that in Iraq. "Minorities expressing their grievances doesn't mean that you're going into a civil war," he said.
But Hollis of RIIA warned that instability in Iraq could alter the existing balance in such countries as Saudi Arabia.
"The Shi'ites of the eastern province of Saudi Arabia are much better off loyal to the crown at this stage," she said. "But they are using this rise of Shi'ite power in Iraq as a bargaining tool to get a bit more recognition for their rights as Saudi citizens. In the future, if the al-Saud seem to be losing their grip, then maybe they would make a new calculation."
Shi'ite Iran, with its ties to the former Shi'ite Iraqi exiles who now rule Iraq, has considerable influence in that country, perhaps greater than the United States. Various agencies of the Iranian regime have maintained leverage with Iraq's multitude of feuding Shi'ite power brokers, whose rise to power has given Iran currency even as it profits by raging against the occupation that delivered them. The full extent of Iranian military involvement in Iraq is not clear, though. While support for the Shi'ite militias is probable, some analysts say Iran is supporting Sunni militants at the same time.
Hollis said that many in the Iranian regime preferred stability in Iraq, but not all. "There's been a certain amount of hedging of bets, keeping in with as many factions as possible."
But while moderate conservatives want stability, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad may be more of a gambler. "I think the president, as a populist and a bit of a believer in his own ideology, may see larger work to be done in a sort of regional, Shi'ite Muslim anti-Western sense," Hollis said.
The administration of US President George W Bush recently warned Iran against direct interference in Iraq and accused it of sending in the Revolutionary Guards. But for all the tough talk, the looming civil war and the reality of Iranian influence appear to have led to last Friday's announcement by the US that it would hold talks with Iran on Iraq. If those talks go ahead, Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari's fate will certainly be on the agenda. Tehran is backing Jaafari, with Washington hoping to install Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. This ongoing political war has the potential to add internecine Shi'ite warfare to Iraq's lethal brew.
While Iran now operates behind the scenes, there are scenarios for direct Iranian intervention. One flash point is the nuclear issue. The ICG report concluded, "Should the nuclear question come to a head and force international intervention of some kind (including sanctions), the regime may want to fight the US where it is most vulnerable, namely in Iraq."
Korany of AUC said also that "if the sacred holy places of Shi'ism are violated", as in Samarra, "the Iranians could be so provoked and the government under so much pressure" that Iranian troops could conceivably cross the border.
Sunni fears, secular woes Iraq's other neighbors have an obvious economic stake in Iraq - Turkey, Jordan and Syria benefited from Iraqi oil concessions before Saddam Hussein's fall, and stability in Iraq would open markets that civil war is foreclosing. But the more pressing preoccupations of Iraq's secular, Sunni-majority neighbors are political and ideological. Not only is the rise in Iranian Shi'ite Islamist influence causing sleepless nights, but so is the empowerment of Sunni Islamist militants who have western Iraq as their playground.
Islamist parties are now scoring victories at the ballot box across the Arab world, with their kindred spirits in Iraq proving the enduring power of military jihad. The combination is focusing secular minds as never before.
Turkey is particularly worried about Iran's central role in Iraq. As Ayhan Simsek has written in The New Anatolian, Turkey would like to keep Iraq intact, partly so that it can serve as a buffer to its regional rival, Iran. Key to this are fears of Iranian influence and Islamism spreading to strongly secular Turkey.
Jaafari's recent visit to Ankara, of which he neglected to inform Kurdish Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in advance, has also reignited tension with Iraq's Kurds. Ankara fears their empowerment will embolden its own Kurdish minority, and Iraqi Kurds fear that Ankara is now sidestepping them to keep a check on their ambitions.
Talabani has vocally opposed Jaafari's candidacy, with reports suggesting the Kurds are displeased that Jaafari is forestalling a resolution of their bid to control the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. There are also reports in the Turkish press that while in Ankara Jaafari offered to have Turkish troops replace US troops in northern Iraq.
If Iraq dissolves into civil war, Korany said, Turkey could feel obliged to secure its interests in northern Iraq. "I can imagine that the Turks, who are not happy at all about the autonomy of the Kurds in Iraq, will try to reimpose a sort of control of the situation," he said, "so that there wouldn't be a contagion through the Kurdish population in Turkey."
Just as Turkey fears the extension of Iran's reach, Jordan is worried about the rise of Sunni extremists. Those claiming to fight under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's banner now have a base from which to try to bring down the pro-Western, secular Hashemites. And some Jordanians, said Hollis, "foresee that in the breakup of Iraq, Zarqawi is more likely to see his battlefront as western Iraq and Jordan, and are [speculating] that Jordanian troops will end up being deployed to western Iraq in order to head this off".
Such adventurism would, of course, require US acquiescence, and unnerve Iran and Syria. Of all Iraq's neighbors, Syria has perhaps the most ambiguous relationship to Iraq's widening vortex. What role Syria has played in allowing fighters to cross into Iraq is an enduring mystery of the war. What is clear is that the phenomenon is a doubled-edged sword for Damascus.
On the one hand disorder in Iraq undoubtedly distracts the United States from its confrontation with the regime of President Bashar Assad. On the other hand, militant Islamist fighters may well be crossing back into Syria, complicating the secular Ba'athist regime's long struggle with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.
The sharp dangers of the phenomenon of blowback from Iraq's new jihadis was demonstrated recently in the Saudi context, with the failed attack on Abqaiq, the world's largest oil-processing facility, on February 24. While a Saudi al-Qaeda-linked group claimed the attack, the first directly targeting the Saudi oil industry, there has been speculation that it was inspired by attacks on Iraq's oil infrastructure. The House of Saud is facing its own mini-insurgency and is perhaps the regime with the most to lose as Iraqi jihad is exported.
America's Iraq conundrum The Sunni-Shi'ite war in Iraq is a potential catastrophe for US interests in the region. Not only are allies of the United States being threatened and its military being placed under further duress, the symbolic setback civil war presents is profound. Korany of AUC said the US is now facing "complete failure of the objective of establishing a new Iraq, which would have been a showcase, a model of democracy for the region".
"If the Americans leave now," he said, "with the chaos behind them, it is bound to affect American influence - particularly its advice on democracy in the region."
With the war more unpopular than ever in the US, the Bush administration is now befuddled by an election-year conundrum. On March 13, President Bush came as close as he has yet to setting a timetable for withdrawal when he vowed Iraqi troops would control most of the country by the end of the year. But by the administration's own logic, withdrawal would bring Khalilzad's warning to fruition.
As a result, the US administration may well have to choose between, on the one hand, holding together a country at war with itself and, on the other, surrendering it and ushering in a regional war.
Ashraf Fahim is a freelance writer on Middle Eastern affairs based in New York and London. His writing can be found at www.storminateacup.org.uk.
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