As expected, US Secretary of State John Kerry's meeting with Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki and other relevant stakeholders in Baghdad has only added to the confusion now spawning Washington and some other Western capitals over the feared break-up of Iraq. To the Prime Minister's demand for more weapons and air strikes against the rebel forces he could only promise "intense and sustained" US support, and that too if Iraqi leaders make "choices that will be made in the next few days and weeks". Although, Kerry did not spell out the 'choices', his officials left no one in doubt that Washington wants al-Maliki to step down or form - within a week or so - a broad-based coalition government by inducting Sunni and Kurd leaders. Following the April general election, the prime minister has neither called the elected parliament into session nor indicated if he would do so anytime soon. The chickens are finally coming home to roost. That the West had to come to such a pass of double speak was a given from day one when a war for the Iraqi oil was launched under the rubric of depriving Saddam Hussein of stockpiles of 'weapons of mass destruction'. But for President Obama's stiff resistance, the Republican neocons would have by now conducted air strikes at Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) targets, if not sent American boots to the killing fields of Iraq. If the provocations being cited by Dick Cheney and Tony Blair were perfect lies no less grossly ill-informed were their advisors' take on the ethnic and sectarian contours of Iraqi demographics. Why general elections within six months of invasion in 2003 the Americans argued they want to create a Shia power centre rivaling Iran. Yes, there is the al-Maliki-headed Shia government in Baghdad, but it neither is an apology for a functioning democracy nor a rival of Iran. To the utter disappointment of the United States both Tehran and Riyadh are against foreign intervention in the name of stemming the rising tide of ISIL.
Where to go from here; nobody knows in Washington or London. In the meanwhile the 'Gates of Hell', the then Arab League secretary general Amr Musa, had warned that the West's invasion of Iraq would open, are getting wider by the day. The lingering Shia-Sunni rift over state power, which the al-Maliki regime had exploited to its advantage, is now weapon of choice in the ISIL hands, so much so, that in the Sunni states its rampant savagery in the captured cities is being overlooked, if not endorsed. The balance of political power in Baghdad is increasingly being tilted in favour of the ISIL, as both elected Kurds and Sunni leaders are no more interested in survival of the al-Maliki order, the veterans of Saddam armies are joining the ranks of rebel forces in large numbers and the Baathists have resurfaced. But the Sunni Arab governments are not greatly worried over the rapid gains of the ISIL and its proposed caliphate in the conquered areas of Syria and Iraq, mainly because unlike al Qaeda the ISIL is focused on local rather than global jihad, maintaining a clear distance from influential Egyptian ideologue Syed Qutb's philosophy of Udoo al-Baeed (the far off enemy). And, also its ideological zeal seems tempered by its mission to establish an independent state, a policy clearly reflected from its co-existence deals with the Kurds to whom it promptly surrendered the possession of oil hub of Kirkuk. On the face of it there is not much the United States or any outside power can do to roll back the surging tide of ISIL. But Iraqi government can to some extent, if not completely, by putting on ground a broad-based government equally shared by Shias, Sunnis and Kurds, and for this to happen if Maliki has to go, he should. At the same time the neighbouring states, particularly across the Gulf, should curb any temptation to have their own men in control of Baghdad. They should remember that while the military might of ISIL may be real but its political ability, like of any such revolutionary outfit, is always below par. And as it unravels it would spawn yet another spell of regional uncertainty. Maybe, the ISIL may like to have a deal with Baghdad for an autonomous status within a federal structure like the one enjoyed by the Kurds. In such a scenario the best contribution the West, including the foreign intervention-oriented Nato, can make is to stay out and give up any idea of sending in Special Forces or carrying out targeted air strikes in the name of 'intense and sustained' support.
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