The Guardian view on the crisis in Iraq

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/13/crisis-in-iraq-kurds-baghdad

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The consequence of the debacle in northern Iraq has been a what-to-do furore in Washington, Ankara, the Arab capitals and no doubt in Tehran as well, with talk of bombs, drones and foreign troops. But it would be simplistic to think that putting air power down on the fighters of Isis, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or confronting them with Iranian special forces, Turkish soldiers, or even US marines is either necessary or desirable. Baghdad's failure in the north is much more a political than a military failure and the remedy, if it comes, will be political. Military force, which had better be Iraqi rather than foreign, is at best a stopgap.

The salient thing about the Isis forces is not how strong they are, but how weak. They are small in number, not that well-equipped and deeply handicapped politically in the populated areas they have taken over by their harsh and coercive style. It will be a surprise if their rule in the region is not soon actively opposed by local people. It will also be a surprise if their forces make a successful move on Baghdad. If they did, it would mean that the Iraqi army was so far gone that it could not defend the seat of government or a city in which there were large numbers of Shia and, if that was the case, then no amount of outside aid could change the situation. We are not at that point.

Yet it is true that, weak though Isis is, the government in the north proved even weaker. The reason is that the Iraq which the Americans left behind them when they withdrew in 2011 was a house of cards. The rift between Shias and Sunnis which had opened up during an earlier period of near civil war had only been papered over, while the serious tensions between the Baghdad government and the Kurdish authorities were similarly unresolved. The army was well-equipped, but not well-motivated. The government, in spite of its oil revenues, still rising today, was unable to deliver such basics as reliable water and electricity to its citizens, let alone good health or education services.

The administration was essentially a system for dividing up state assets according to the shifting political power balance of the moment. Had the Americans stayed longer, or had they put their money on a leader other than Nouri al-Maliki, these weaknesses might have been gradually overcome. They were not, as was dramatically demonstrated this week, when relatively small bands of irregulars put to flight much larger numbers of Iraqi troops. The house of cards collapsed, with the Kurds moving into Kirkuk, to protect it, but also to cement their claim to it as their capital, while the government forces regrouped north of Baghdad.

The situation may not demand, but it certainly invites, intervention. The most important outside actors are Iran and Turkey, with the United States in third place, and some others, like Saudi Arabia, of uncertain importance. In spite of its long and costly engagement, America has few levers left to pull in Iraq and what influence it did have has been systematically undermined, ironically enough, by Mr Maliki.America may or may not send serious help, but the one thing that can be safely predicted is that Iraq's stronger neighbours will move in if Baghdad does not get a grip on the situation.

Is this then the moment when Iraq, as so often predicted, will be effectively divided into three parts ? Not yet. Isis may well not last, to be replaced by a more normal Sunni leadership. Whether Isis fades or proves more enduring, the problem has always been that the tripartite nature of Iraq, less evident when government is strong, more evident when it is not, never goes away. But a truly divided Iraq would be too weak to resist further penetration by outside powers at best, and being transformed into a front in a regional Sunni-Shia war at worst. President Obama came close yesterday to making aid conditional on Iraqis working together. Unity, less than perfect but more than nominal is in the interest of all of Iraq's regions.