Going back into history to look for lessons to be learned is always a mistake. History for the most part is written by the winners, not the losers. Outcomes such as wars, political transitions or new governments, constitutions, peace treaties, borders, and reparations, are always determined by the winner and allies to benefit the winner and allies. Underlying causes – including subject or minority populations, civil society, human rights, and rights to resources such as land, hydro-carbons, and water – are neglected. So, I think I am being terribly historically presumptuous to pick out a list of lessons we should have learned so that we could have done things better, faster, earlier, or not at all. Forced to choose, my list includes the following:

•Avoid anything to do with or in Afghanistan: Alexander the Great, the British and the Russians, to name only 3 imperial armies, all failed. Why did we think we could succeed?

•Avoid secret agreements and maps outlining pre-determined spoils of war. Especially avoid maps similar to the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement or any map which claimed to describe how Britain and France would divide the Middle East. Today, the map is only a red herring, intended to place blame for current geographic conflicts on frustrated Arab nationalists and corrupt imperial powers as well as on corrupt and failed governments that came to power out of the mandate system and WWII.

•Never presume to know best what an aspiring government “must” do. The British got it wrong in their empire, especially in Iraq, Palestine, and Arabia; the French got it wrong in Lebanon; and everyone has gotten it wrong in Syria and Iraq since 1920.

•Covert action does not solve problems of foreign or security policy, international relations, cold wars, or repressive rulers of failed states. At best it offers a short-term patch but there is rarely a solution in siding with one faction against another secretly. First, nothing stays secret for more than 5 minutes. Second, intelligence is limited by access and reliability of sources and methods; and especially in the current Syrian crisis, there are no new and trustworthy factions, free Syrian armies and Iraqi government-approved militias notwithstanding, who have clean hands and who can withstand scrutiny by the American or international community or within their own countries.

•Never assume an opposition or government force will put aside its priorities for yours. In the case of Syria, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to find leaders willing to put aside their struggle against President Assad to defeat America’s enemy first.

•Beware of premature declarations. Of course the Ottomans, the Germans under the Kaiser and the 3rd Reich, and Assad must go, but be careful when and how you declare this. These are sentiments, not solutions, and are sure to complicate post-conflict planning.

•Do not repeat the mistakes made by a former victor in post-war conflict resolution or planning for transitional authority. We did in Iraq in repeating the errors made by the British when they occupied Iraq in 1917 and planned for the post-war era. They talked about “liberating, not conquering Iraq” and bringing the benefits of Western democracy to Iraq when Iraqis were ready for it. And we did the same – our general gave the same speech in 2003 on liberating Baghdad that the British General Maude gave in 1917; they built buildings for parliament and wrote the constitutions and treaties, imported laws and a currency (Indian rupees), and held plebiscites to determine who 300 favored Iraqis preferred to have as the mandate power and whether they would accept Amir Faisal as King. We did virtually the same, establishing democratic institutions and practices, a governing council and trying to privatize the economy without Iraqi input or comprehension.

•Finally, do blame everything on WWI and the imperial policies of the British, the French and Woodrow Wilson’s promises of self-determination; include the Ottomans, or what had become of their Empire by 1914. It was a Turkish and not an Ottoman Empire at that point, ruled by a humiliated leadership using tactics of racial and ethnic superiority, military strength, and dare I say it – sectarianism, ethnic cleansing, and divide and rule tactics. The Ottoman-Turkish successor government committed the same sins as the imperial powers; it used discriminatory policies and manipulation of ethnic and religious minorities to help it control and contain any majorities – Assyrians, Hashimites and Sunnis in Iraq, Alawites and Christians in Greater Syria and Lebanon, Jews and absentee elites in Palestine.

So much for lessons learned. In all frankness, there is no way these issues or lessons or mistakes could have been avoided entirely, although I believe our unwillingness to learn about or consult with those who did know Iraq and the unfortunate tendency of ideologues to apply ideology over reality hurt Iraqis and hurt the United States. But I will not say it was all wrong. I doubt anyone really was able to grasp the ability of a country and its people to survive 35 years of brutal dictatorship, marginalization, and violence. Nor could anyone calculate the enormity of the damage to be overcome in order to make a seamless transition to the rule of law, political accountability and government transparency from the corruption of tribal politics and political patronage, ethnic cleansing and marginalization of “the Other” that has been Iraq since 2003.

Key Question: Is there a future for the Middle East? Are the socalled Arab Springs of 2011 simply a brief moment rather than the beginning of a new age? Or are we witnessing the return of authoritarianism to the region in the name of stability, security, and fear of sectarian extremism? I cannot discuss here the entire region, Egypt, etc. Instead, I will focus on what is happening in Syria and Iraq, the rise of the Islamic Caliphate/ISIS, and its impact on Iran, the region, and the United States. In some of my comments, you may hear hints of “lessons learned” but I hope you will also understand my concern for what is happening there, for the future of Iraq and the people of the region.

Background

From 2003 through 2014, Iraq walked a fine line between the demands of the United States to democratize, liberalize, share power and accept its version of checks and balances and accountable governance, and the demands from its neighbor, the Islamic Republic of Iran, to create a government more in keeping with its version of a Shia-dominated Islamic state. For the first time in decades, Iran once again had access to and influence in Iraq. Iraq was open to Iranian political, economic and strategic influence and Tehran pushed the advantage it had acquired through years of hosting and sponsoring Iraqi exiles, mostly Shia Arabs, using them first to fight its war with Iraq and then to penetrate and direct political, economic, and security policy making after the collapse of Saddam Husayn’s government. Not all Iraqis were comfortable with Iranians’ influence in their affairs, but there was little that could be said or done to oppose them. Iraq’s Sunni neighbors accused the United States of ceding Iraq to Iran by supporting open elections, which guaranteed a Shia majority, and failing to rein in sectarian policies aimed at marginalizing Iraq’s Sunni minority. As U.S. influence dwindled in Iraq after the withdrawal of military forces in December 2011, Iran continued to support various political factions and militias and encourage anti-American activities in hopes of forcing the Americans to withdraw totally from the region. They nearly succeeded.

The Syrian rising against President Bashar al-Assad and the emergence of Islamist extremist factions in Iraq aided by unhappy Sunni Arab tribes and politicians after 2011 changed all this. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was forced to resign under criticism of his efforts to assure sectarian and personal control of the government and the failure of Iraqi security forces to prevent ISIL extremists from occupying Mosul and one-third of the country. After his controversial victory in the 2010 parliamentary election, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had promised to appoint a national security council under his chief rival, Ayad Allawi, and name new defense and interior ministers at a meeting in Irbil, all in the spirit of national unity. He then proceeded to ignore his promises of power sharing, kept these key ministries under his control, and implemented changes that, in effect, brought much of the government under his direct control, stripped the parliament of all power, eliminated independent regulatory commissions intended to oversee government operations and practices, purged Sunni Arabs and rivals from their official civilian and military posts, and created a “counterterrorism” unit within the military that reported directly to him rather than the Ministry of Defense.

The pressure for removing Maliki came from Shia, Kurdish and Sunni factions, Iraq’s senior Shia cleric Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iran and the United States. Leaders of Sunni Arab, Shia Arab, Kurdish, and Turkman parties had with deliberate regularity, threatened to walk away from their posts in government, parliament, and negotiations if a solution favoring their side of an issue were not adopted. For Kurdish and Sunni Arabs, in particular, who walked out of endless negotiations with the government over the preparation of a constitution, allocation of budgets, distribution of oil revenues, definition of borders and the right to disputed territories, allocation of ministries, and Baghdad’s refusal to amnesty regime rivals and former Baathists, the situation had become particularly dangerous. In their refusal to cooperate with Baghdad, their threat was clear: without us, the government and the state will fail. National reconciliation is not an option; it is all about revenge, retaliation, and power. Political confrontation was in the air.

Then the unthinkable happened. Sunni extremist factions fighting President Bashar al-Assad in Syria crossed the border into Iraq and from December 2013 through June 2014 launched a military campaign that gave them control of roughly one-third of Iraq, eliminated the border with Syria and in June saw the creation of an Islamic caliphate in territory now controlled by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIL or ISIL). It marked the first time an Islamic terrorist faction had acquired territory and declared an independent state with the goal of global jihad. For Iraq, Iran and their neighbors, it marked an existential crisis of the worst sort. It created a threat to their security and futures as independent states under any kind of governance. ISIL’s goal to them was clear: take Damascus and Baghdad and eliminate along the way all Muslims – Sunni and Shia—who do not conform to ISIL standards and values as a fundamentalist Islamic state and society. For Sunnis, this means acceptance of all standards and practices of the self-appointed Caliph Ibrahim, formerly known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi; for recalcitrant Sunnis and Shia Muslims, who are deemed apostates, it means punishment by death (crucifixion, beheading, or burial alive); for women it means rape, enslavement and forced “marriage” to an ISIL fighter or honor killing by her family if freed. ISIL has threatened Kuwait as a way to attack U.S. interests in the region and urges its foreign fighters, especially those carrying European and American passports, to return home and prepare to attack.

Iran and Iraq: Hostile Past, Ambiguous Presence

Iran and Iraq have shared territorial ambitions, fought wars against each other and honored common religious values and leaders since the Arab-Islamic conquests of the seventh century. Both were occupied by foreign powers, experiences that shaped their modern self-view towards the Turks, British, Russians and Americans, and describe their ambiguous relations today. Both are ruled by Shia sectarian political factions intent on preserving their version of an Islamist and revolutionary nationalist legacy interspersed with democratic practices. Iran’s 80 million population is approximately 90 percent Shia, 5 percent Sunni and 5 percent other (Zoroastrian, Christian and Jewish). Iraq’s population of 32.6 million is approximately 75 percent Arab and 20 percent Kurd ethnically; by sect it is 60-65 percent Shia Arab and 37 percent Sunni (Arab and Kurd), with a smattering (3 percent) Turkmen, Assyrian-Chaldean Christian, and Yazidi.

In the past 100 years, Iran and Iraq have been at war or in an uneasy state of truce. Rarely have the two countries enjoyed the kind of ambiguous and somewhat superficial harmony that has existed since the fall of Saddam. They share a 900-mile virtually open border and a history of using whatever allies were available, including unhappy minority populations, dissident factions, Israel and the United States against each other. Since 2003, millions of pilgrims, probably thousands of traders, and many military and security specialists have gone to Iraq for both innocent and nefarious purposes, including support to the major Shia parties and their militias. Lacking any real border controls, Iranian pilgrims and traders have been able to enter Iraq without check; their objectives range from religious tourism to commerce, investment, and smuggling probably of narcotics, weapons and possibly human trafficking as well. Iraq is the center of Shia Islam; it contains four important religious shrine cities which are global centers of learning and law. Iranian intelligence officers and IRGC personnel have allegedly helped with training, logistics support, and targeting of operations.

Although ISIL’s rapid successes have focused public attention on sectarian differences, it is nationalism and the ethnic issue—Persian, Arab, and Kurd—that shapes loyalty and identity in both countries. The takeover of Mosul and other cities in the Sunni-dominated northeast last spring and summer clearly was accomplished with the support of disaffected Iraqi Sunni Arab political leaders and dissidents, local tribal leaders, renegade Baathists and ex-military officers, the same mix responsible for the 2006-2007 insurgency in which ISIL’s predecessor was an al-Qaeda affiliate. When Mosul fell and the Iraqi army collapsed, Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) took advantage of the chaos to deploy its peshmerga militia to occupy the territories under dispute with Baghdad and claimed by Iraqi Arabs, Turkmen and other minorities. KRG President Masud Barzani talked about organizing a referendum on independence. ISIL then turned on the Kurds, saying it intended to push them back to the mountains and out of territory that belonged to Iraq’s Arab Sunnis. As of this writing, ISIL and the Kurdish peshmerga with U.S. military assistance are fighting ISIL in the north and have retaken several Kurdish villages and the country’s largest hydroelectric dam on the Tigris River near Mosul and Baiji.

Iran’s strategy towards Iraq has been consistent. Territorial squabbles were the norm but outright invasion unthinkable. Whoever ruled in Iran preferred a more subtle approach to containing the ambitions of Iraq’s leaders – exploit the ethnic and sectarian tensions within the other, probe for signs of weakness, and take advantage of internal political, economic and strategic vulnerabilities to control or contain the other. This policy has worked especially well for the Islamic Republic since 2003. Tehran’s goal is the creation of an Iran-friendly government strong enough to keep the country united and too weak to pose a military, political, or economic threat. It supports virtually every Shia leader and aspiring politician, and has influence over many Kurdish and Sunni Arab politicians as well.

A significant shift, however, occurred with the Syrian civil war and its spill-over into Iraq. Assad has been a staunch and indeed the only Arab ally of Iran since the early days of the revolution. Tehran supports him to a great extent because it fears the alternative should he fall – Damascus under the control of Sunni extremists, be they salafis such as ISIL, or the allegedly more moderate Muslim Brotherhood. Tehran views both as anti-Iran and anti-Shia. The possibility that Assad might fail and Syria dissolve into civil war put an even greater emphasis on Iraq as Iran’s strategic line of defense against threats from the west and from the Islamist extremists moving into Iraq and threatening Shia whom the Islamic Republic has vowed to defend.

Iraqis views of Iran have also changed. Saddam Husayn feared the Islamic revolution and its desire to export its Shia style of government to Iraq. Iraq’s Sunni Arabs continue this distrust and now fear Iranian intervention in Iraq’s war with ISIL is far more serious perhaps than ISIL itself. They.call the Shia of Iraq and Iran safavis, referring to the sixteenth-century conversion of Iran to Shia Islam under the Safavid Shah Isma`il. They blame Iran for encouraging the marginalization of the Sunni minority in the new state and for trying to isolate them from the Sunni Arab world.
Since 1979, Iraq’s Shia have been influenced by the success of the Islamic revolution in Iran and Iranian clerics’ vision of Shia traditions and symbols resonates in both countries’ religious communities. Yet not all Iraq’s Shias seek to establish Ayatollah Khomeini’s doctrine of rule of the supreme cleric. Most Shia in Iraq as well as many in the Gulf region follow Ayatollah Sistani’s doctrine of quietism, meaning opposition to the participation of clerics in government; this does not preclude the establishment of Iraq as an Islamic state under religious (sharia) law, which even Sistani advocates.

Iraq, Iran and the U.S.

Tehran and Washington share a common interest in Iraq. Neither wants to see it partitioned. Iran is determined that the Shia majority head the government, whereas the U.S. prefers a leader who will bring all major ethnic and sectarian groups together in a unified Iraq. For Iran, however, it is vital that, whatever party, faction, or individual rules in Baghdad its interests and pre-eminence are recognized and are able to protect its interests. In opposing Maliki, Tehran showed a flexibility unseen thus far in its Syria policy — better to change leaders than risk its need for stability and strategic depth in Iraq.

Ties between Iraq and Iran are not as strong or consistent as many assume. The two have unresolved border claims and Iran has not dropped its demand for reparations for the 1980s war. It meddles in Iraqi politics and in Kurdish-Baghdad relations, a dangerous game if it wants to avoid Iranian Kurds from having the same aspirations as Iraq’s. Iran has seized oil-fields and would like greater influence in affairs of the hawza, the religious “college” governing the Shia community in Najaf, where it is busy building schools and buying land. Visitors to the shrine cities describe Iranians’ aggressive business dealings which undercut Iraqi merchants and traders. Many Iraqi Shia were uncomfortable with the leverage Iranian military and political officials wielded in Iraq. Iranian “advisors” permeated the many security, intelligence, police, and government agencies and according to many Iraqis still exert considerable influence.

This perception of Iran has changed with the ISIL military successes. Iran was the first to answer the call for help from Iraqis when both the Iraqi military and the Kurdish peshmerga were routed in June 2014, a point not lost on Iraqis regardless of their view of Iran. And senior Iranian officials – especially Ali Shamkhani, an ethnic Arab and secretary-general of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council who is responsible for Iran’s policy in Iraq, and General Qassem Suleymani, the senior IRGC military commander in Iraq and Syria – are extremely influential in Iraq’s political and security issues.

Regardless of the outcome of the war with ISIL, Iraq will remain weak for years, unable to defend its borders or keep its more powerful neighbors from meddling in its politics or creating breakdowns in security. It cannot ignore its large and powerful neighbor, but Iran’s influence will probably fade in the long term, especially should the Sunni resurgence lead to a divided Iraq or should a new Iraqi leadership develop into a more unified federal government that downplays the sectarian divide.

Options for Iraq: One State, Two States, Three States, None

The war and the humanitarian disaster that accompanies it has affected the politics, the economy, society and virtually every Iraqi whether in a war zone or soon to be within one. It has also affected relations between the United States and Iran and brought in British, French, German, and Emirati military and humanitarian assistance. And, while negotiations on nuclear enrichment between Iran and the P-5 + 1 continue, Washington and Tehran came to the same conclusions regarding aid to Baghdad and the Kurds, including warnings to the Kurds on political behavior (no independence referendum) and limited military support. It is difficult to measure the amount of support given by Iran to Iraq. Press and eyewitness accounts describe military units in the north, assistance to Shia militias in Baghdad and southern Iraq, provision of some Russian-origin aircraft, weapons, and at several funerals for IRGC military personnel and Iranian-backed Iraqi militants. Press accounts also claim Lebanon’s Hizballah has sent advisers and Iraqi Shia soldiers who had been in Syria have returned to Iraq.

Even before ISIL began its war, many outside Iraq predicted that a de facto break-up of Iraq was coming, but there was no consensus on how many pieces would survive. The answer very much depends on one’s views of the strength and nature of Iraqi nationalism among all the diverse populations; the willingness of the Kurds to go it alone in a land-locked and dangerous environment dependent on the kindness of strangers; and Iraq’s affinity with its neighbors, of which it can be said there is little. Several scenarios are possible:

•The One-State Solution. Iraq hangs together, with the Kurds forgoing de jure independence for the short-term and cutting a deal with Baghdad whereby Iraq pays the KRG its share of the federal budget and the salaries of the peshmerga, permits the KRG to sell oil independent of Baghdad, and accepts KRG control, albeit temporary, over the disputed provinces it has occupied. Prime Minister Abadi has agreed to pay budget arrears and salaries and to the KRG selling oil, knowing that some will come from the disputed territories it occupied last summer. The problem now is that Baghdad says it has no money. Both sides are avoiding the question of the ultimate fate of the disputed territories.

•The Two State Solution. This scenario assumes that the Sunni Arabs currently fighting with ISIL will break with them for a better offer from Baghdad and to end what is quickly becoming a caliphate of fear. They began their journey with the single-minded goal of removing Maliki and gaining leverage over a successor government. Independence would only offer them existence as a weak state dependent on Turkey and looking to a fragile Jordan for support, neither of which is a viable option. The Kurds declare their independence of Iraq but Iraq’s Sunni and Shia Arabs are drawn closer together as ISIL turns on its Sunni Arab allies, with whom it has very little in common. The Shia draw on their history of loyalty to the state and identity as Arabs and their resentment of the Kurdish take-over of what they regard as Arab land. This could turn into a civil war but in this scenario the Kurds will almost certainly receive no support, encouragement or recognition from Turkey, Iran, the Gulf Arabs, whatever remains of Syria, or Europe. Nor does Israel appear anxious to make common cause with the Kurds outside of trade, oil and possible arms sales.

•The Three State Solution. In this scenario, Sunnistan, Shiastan and Kurdistan emerge as three weak independent states, needing a protector for survival, access to trade, and export of goods. Only the Shia state with its oil wealth, access to the Gulf, and linkages to Iran would be able to sustain long-term growth. The Kurds would be dependent on access to trade and hydrocarbon export thru Turkey and a constant flow of foreign investment for its financial well-being and security. In the long-term, the Kurdish model of growth may not work, especially given the dependence of the majority of Kurds on the state for jobs and their economic well-being. This is not the same as a decentralized Iraq with several regional provincial governments similar to the KRG, which is a distinct possibility.

•The No State Solution. Simply put, there is no state, only warlords, militias and urban and tribal confederations dependent on ties with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Jordan. In a country without a state or government, the risk of instability caused by non-state actors, meaning terrorists, operating freely in ungoverned spaces is high.

Under any scenario, ISIL advances will force change, or at minimum greater clarity, in the direction of U.S. and Iranian policies in Iraq and towards Syria and perhaps towards the Arab Gulf states. It is unlikely, however, that ISIL will alter any state’s nuclear strategy or basic views of Iran. The BBC’s Persian Service reported in early September that Supreme Leader Khamenei had approved co-operation with the United States as part of the fight against the Islamic State in northern Iraq and authorized his top commander, General Suleymani, to co-ordinate military operations with the American, Iraqi and Kurdish forces. His website denies any approval of cooperation with the United States, especially its military forces who are still blamed for causing the rise of ISIL. Pictures of the General on the internet showed him in northern Iraq around the time of the breaking of the siege of Amerli in late August, suggesting that this co-operation had already started.

What do Iraqis want?

Iraq has a new government, a new prime minister and a Cabinet it hopes will reflect national unity rather than Maliki’s rampant sectarianism. The Cabinet appears to meet the requirements laid out by U.S. officials for a government of national unity. Abadi has appointed practically every leader of every political faction or party since 2003 to be a deputy prime minister, vice president or minister. These changes are unlikely to resolve political tensions in Baghdad or produce harmony between unhappy political factions, tribes, and ambitious leaders. Abadi’s first and only priority for now is the existential crisis posed by ISIL to the survival and unity of Iraq. To do that, he must accommodate Sunnis and Shias, Arabs and Kurds and other minorities and keep the support of Tehran, Washington, Ankara and Riyadh. Anything less than total support will lessen his and Iraq’s chances of surviving the ravages of ISIL. He will need to appeal to Iraqis’ support for their constitution, weak as it is, and agree to compromise on federal control by conceding budgetary and local security control to the provincial governments. He will not have the strong central government under majoritarian rule (meaning no more quotas for Sunni Arabs and Kurds in government posts) that Maliki was urging. But Abadi, who spent his decades of exile in England, may be better able to negotiate with rivals than was Maliki, who spent his exile in Iran and Syria.

The Kurds demanded additional ministries, the right to sign contracts and export their oil independent of Baghdad; payment of 2014 budget arrears; and Baghdad’s recognition of their control of the Disputed Territories they occupied in June. They claim Baghdad owes them $8 billion in oil-sharing revenue which they desperately need to pay salaries of government employees and the peshmerga forces, many of whom have not been paid for months. Kurds say will participate in the new government on a trial basis while they negotiate with Abadi over key demands. They have gotten much that they demanded. It also put a pause on Kurdish demands for a referendum on independence, with some Kurds now identifying themselves as Iraqi and Kurdish in open discourse abroad. And Kurdish peshmerga forces are heavily engaged in fighting ISIL with U.S., Iranian, British and German military assistance. It is not clear, however, that when the battle for Kurdish territory is done, that the Kurds will then help Iraq’s Sunni and Shia militias win their battle with ISIL. Prospects are not good, given past history between Arab and Kurd and low expectations of any change in Kurdish mind-set.

Sunni Arab politicians are also looking to settle grievances with Baghdad, an end to de-Baathification, greater participation in government, and an end to sectarian discrimination. One of their primary demands is the Defense Ministry, which they view as their traditional sinecure. Independence not a goal, nor for Shia. They got what they wanted in the new Minister of Defense, but inclusion also covers other government institutions and practices.

What should the United States do?

The resulting civil war is having a profound effect on Iraq’s domestic politics, its relations with its neighbors, and regional security. Equally important, it could change the delicate balance currently in play between Iran and the U.S in the P5+1 nuclear negotiations due to end in November and relations between the United States and the Gulf Arab states. The United States should:

•Look for ways to cooperate with regional players to ensure Iraq remains a united, independent state. The United States cannot single-handedly solve Iraq’s crises; it needs the cooperation and leverage held by Iraq’s neighbors, including Iran, the Gulf Arab states, and Turkey. Until this current crisis in Iraq, Iran has rejected linkage of the nuclear P5+1 talks to other issues and we have followed the same strategy. Iran may now think Iraq has become a larger issue or a distraction it can use to its advantage with Washington, but this would be a mistake. The nuclear issue needs resolution on its own terms or it will continue to overshadow U.S. relations and Iranian ambitions in the region and create unease in Israel and with our Gulf Arab friends regarding our intentions.

•Resist the pressure to link Iraq policy to Syria policy. The issues are not the same; support for the Abadi government in Baghdad against its extremist terrorist opponents does not require similar support for Bashar al-Assad, who has ruthlessly battled opponents seeking political reform and an end to regime terrorism and injustice.

•Define U.S. regional security interests and policy more broadly than just by counter-terrorist cooperation or by the success of nuclear negotiations with Iran. These are important issues and progress on one can lead to greater cooperation on other issues. Again, cooperation with Iran in Iraq and on a nuclear agreement could convince the Arab Gulf states that the United States is on Iran’s side on all issues pertaining to stability and security in the Gulf. The U.S. needs to actively counter that view with close coordination with the Arab Gulf states.

•Strongly encourage the Abadi government to pursue national reconciliation between Iraq’s disparate sectarian and ethnic communities. Adherence by all factions—Arab and Kurd, Sunni and Shia—to the principles of federalism outlined in the 2005 constitution and subsequent devolution of responsibility to the provinces over local budgetary, resource and security issues could strengthen the role of the national government over allocation of national resources and a fair distribution of revenues, border security, and transnational threats. Failure to do so risks civil war between Arabs (Sunni and Shia) and Kurds at a later date if the issues of disputed territories and control of hydrocarbon resources are not resolved soon.

•Do not rush to abandon Iraq again if and when the current crisis is over. Instead, analyze what failed under Maliki’s government and what the United States can do to encourage good governance and an effective, integrated defense force that is independent of civilian political influence and sectarian and ethnic animosities. This latter may seem an impossible task, given the recent fighting, but is necessary if Iraq is to survive as a country and avoid future challenges to its political and territorial integrity and stability.