چکیده:
In the wake of the capture of Iraqi lands, especially Mosul by the ISIS, the talk of
disintegration of Iraq was ever more serious in political circles. The idea is still at issue
even after the collapse of the ISIS and its defeat in Mosul. The main objective of this study
is to examine whether ethnic and religious conflicts are powerful enough to lead to Iraq’s
disintegration. Considering the recent developments in Iraq with pretexts of ethnic and
religious conflicts, the question considered in this article is whether this situation could
pose a threat to the territorial integrity of Iraq or not? Monitoring the positions of internal
groups of Iraq, U.S. interests as well as neighboring countries including Iran, Saudi Arabia
and Turkey indicates that disintegration of Iraq would not be beneficial for these countries
and it will cause farther violence in the region. In this research, the roles of certain Foreign
& domestic or International & national elements in the Iraqi politics and society are being
analyzed. A study of the effect of the three variables of Kurds, Sunnis and Shias on Iraqi
disintegration or integrity indicates that the Kurd variable has the largest contributing effect
on Iraq disintegration while the other two variables show lesser potential for driving the
country towards disintegration. Nevertheless, the interests of the regional and trans-regional
states combined with the geographical situation of Iraq as a landlocked territory prove to be
an obstacle in the way of disintegration of the country. According to the findings of this
research, the territorial disintegration of Iraq does not seem to be a viable scenario and
territorial integrity of Iraq is more consistent with the objectives and interests of local
communities and foreign governments.
خلاصه ماشینی:
with no shared Iraqi identity, Arab identity was used by the ruling Sunni elite to integrate the Shia, but found a state-building formula combining hard authoritarianism, co-optation through oil- funded 248 Geopolitics Quarterly, Volume: 13, No 4, Winter 2018 modernization and bureaucratization, and legitimacy based on Arab nationalism required foreign policy victories and oil-funded militarization gave the means, making Iraq a ‘war state’.
The reactions of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds toward all of the events about US invasion of Iraq, the Iraqi government, elections, constitution, condition of the Baath Party and Saddam and Fighting against ISIS were different and have been caused severe conflicts between ethnic and religious groups in Iraq.
In Kirkuk, the local ethnic Arab and Turkmen communities called for a boycott (BBC, 25 September 2017), But the decision was finally taken to hold it on September 25 and more than 90 percent voted for secession, escalated long-running tensions between the Iraqi Kurdish region and the central government over the sharing of oil 260 Geopolitics Quarterly, Volume: 13, No 4, Winter 2018 wealth and the fate of disputed territories such as Kirkuk (Aljazeera, 13 October 2017).
The Shiite religious authority and political leaders’ protests against some issues like foreign plans to divide Iraq such as Biden plan, creating new Sunni or Shiite regions, military aid to Kurdish and Sunni groups outside the control of 262 Geopolitics Quarterly, Volume: 13, No 4, Winter 2018 Baghdad, creation of diverge encouraging armed forces like National Guard (Haras Alwatani) are among their most important approaches in this regards.