(Page 1 of 10) - A Geopolitical Analysis of a Balkanized Iraq: The Political, Economic, and Military Viability of Hypothetically Trisected Iraqi States authored by Vanzo, John.

A Geopolitical Analysis of a Balkanized Iraq;

The Political, Economic, and Military Viability of

Hypothetically Trisected Iraqi States

John P. Vanzo, Ph.D.

Bainbridge College

Bainbridge, Georgia

## email not listed ##

A paper prepared for presentation at the

102

Meeting & Exhibition of the

American Political Science Association

August 31-September 3, 2006 in Philadelphia, PA.

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.

Notwithstanding the Administration’s best efforts, however, recent events indicate that

civil war and territorial partition are increasingly likely outcomes. For instance, July 2006 was
the bloodiest month so far in terms of sectarian violence in Iraq. The peril of the situation was
inadvertently acknowledged the following month by a leaked diplomatic note to British Prime
Minister Tony Blair. In the note, the outgoing British ambassador to Iraq William Patey warned
that civil war and a division of Iraq “is probably more likely at this stage than a successful and
substantial transition to a stable democracy” (BBC 8/3/2006). Patey’s warnings were echoed just
hours later by two senior American military commanders in testimony before the U.S. Senate
Armed Services Committee (CNN 8/3/2006). Iraq’s former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has
stated, “If this is not civil war, then God knows what civil war is” (CBS 3/19/2006). Given the
preexisting hostilities between the ethnic and sectarian groups of Iraq, partition of the country in
the event of civil war is increasingly probable.

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.

CASUS BELLI

Although it is beyond the main focus of this paper to examine the rationale and conduct

of the invasion of Iraq, it does bear mentioning that from the classic geopolitical perspective, the