A Geopolitical Analysis of a Balkanized Iraq;
The Political, Economic, and Military Viability of
Hypothetically Trisected Iraqi States
{Summary Version}
John P. Vanzo, Ph.D.
Bainbridge College
Bainbridge, Georgia
A paper prepared for presentation at the
101
st
Meeting & Exhibition of the
American Political Science Association
September 1-4, 2005 in Washington, D.C.
INTRODUCTION
The Bush Administration’s definition of political success in post-Saddam Iraq has
changed almost as frequently as their rationale for the initial military invasion. Gone are the
heroically optimistic predictions of peace, economic development, religious tolerance, and multi-
cultural civil society in Iraq, which would then serve as the first falling domino in an irresistible
cascade of democratization throughout the Middle East (Danner 2002, Gaddis 2002, White
House 2002). Chastened by rising military, financial, and political costs, the Administration now
speaks more soberly of satisfaction with a fairly stable, some-day reasonably democratic
government for the New Iraq (Diamond 2005, Wright 2005).
Despite the fact that the characterization of success has been a moving target, one
definition of abject political failure in Iraq has remained a constant: the fragmentation of the
country into separate, possibly warring ethno-religious enclaves. The Bush Administration’s
emphatic warnings regarding the consequences of Iraqi balkanization have been echoed by the
governments of at least eight Arab countries in the region.
The heuristic exploration of just such a hypothetically fragmented Iraq is the subject of
this paper. Specifically, it will apply traditional geopolitical methodologies of analysis to assess
the political, economic, and military viability of an Iraq trisected into Sunni, Shi’a and Kurdish
political entities. In doing so, the paper will trace the roots of ethno-sectarian conflict in Iraq and
compare Iraq to two divergent models of national devolution.
IRAQ’S FRACTIOUS BIRTH
Exacerbating the already inherently daunting task of establishing national unity in the
face of deep ethnic and religious divisions, past Iraqi governments and occupying powers have
routinely exploited cultural cleavages as a matter of conscious policy in order to attain their own
political ends.
Readers will be familiar with the glories of ancient Mesopotamia, generally regarded as
the first organized human civilization. However it less well known that Iraq as a modern state
dates back only to 1921. One of an entire class of states created in the aftermath of WWI by the
victorious Entente powers, Iraq was assembled from three provinces of the former Ottoman
Empire. Unfortunately, Iraq’s geopolitical composition was more the result of Great Power
strategic self-interest than an attempt to build a coherent, functional, and self-sustaining state
(Anderson & Stansfield 2004).
As early as 1916, the British had secretly secured mandate powers over the Ottoman
provinces of Basra and Baghdad as a result of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Although no precise
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