IRAQ

At the heart of the terrifying events in Iraq is the centuries-old hatred between two Muslim ideologies: Sunni and Shia.

The deadly power struggle between these two rival versions of the same faith has exploded into open warfare as Sunnis in the extremist terror group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) advance on Baghdad. This week, Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who is Shia, craved that his parliament declare a state of emergency. The bitter escalation of the traditional Sunni/Shia conflict threatens governments and national borders, and events are being closely watched with trepidation throughout the Middle East.

Already, and quite alarmingly, ISIS has effectively established its own nation state (or Islamic caliphate) which spreads across the north of Syria and Iraq. It has been done by taking no heed of the border between the countries. This could not have been achieved without the tacit support of ordinary Sunni people in the areas ISIS has conquered. The Sunnis in Mosul simply regarded the Shia-dominated army from the south of the country as being an occupying force and were only too pleased to see the back of them.

The brutal ideology of ISIS is extreme. The group specialises in amputations and crucifixions for those who do not subscribe to its fundamental creed.

To add to the tribal tensions in Iraq, the country’s north-eastern Kurdish population – who were persecuted by Saddam Hussein and gassed in their thousands – have established what is, in effect, their own independent state in the north of the country: their force of 250,000 Peshmerga militia – who have just taken the oil-rich city of Kirkuk – could defeat ISIS, but they are in dispute with al-Maliki over oil revenues and are in no mood to help.

Across the Middle East, Sunni and Shia rivalries are festering like open sores. Of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, the vast majority are Sunnis; Shias comprise 10 to 15 per cent – two hundred million people.

Egypt, Turkey, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are Sunni. In Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, the ruling Sunni treat Shia as second-class citizens.

The Shia are concentrated in Iran, southern Iraq and Lebanon. And despite being in the minority in Syria, they are powerful there, too. President Bashar al-Assad’s ruling party belong to a Shia sect called the Alawites.

Once you understand the Sunni/Shia divide, you can make sense of the hostile rivalries in the Middle East. It explains why Sunni rebels – backed by the predominately Sunni powers, ranging from Turkey to Saudi Arabia and the smaller Gulf states – are determined to fight Assad’s Shia-dominated army to the death. And why Lebanese Hezbollah militias (Shia) are fighting for Assad, under the command of Revolutionary Guards officers from Iran (also Shia).

The most extraordinary fact in all this is that the conflict goes back to the seventh century and centres on a dispute over who should succeed Islam’s founder Prophet Muhammad after he died in 632 AD.

The largest group (Sunnis) wanted traditional tribal elders to decide upon the best person; the name Sunni comes from Ahl al-Sunna, meaning the people of tradition.

A minority (Shia) wanted a blood relative of the Prophet, and this clash grew violent when Ali, the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, became the fourth caliph – an office that fuses political and religious power. Shia derive their name from shiaat Ali or followers of Ali.

During the years of Empire, these divisions were muted as Sunni and Shia united against the colonial rulers, who took little account of tribal rivalry when they arbitrarily created new countries such as Iraq, a concoction dreamed up by Britain and France in 1921 after the fall of the Turkish Ottoman Empire.

Authoritarian rulers – Saddam Hussein, President Assad and Colonel Gaddafi in Libya – ruthlessly kept a lid on the religious rivalry. With their removal, however, the divisions and sectarian tensions have exploded throughout the Middle East and beyond. This is why extreme fundamentalist Sunnis who wish to restore the medieval caliphate are on the march.

****

. A nihilistic jihadi offshoot of Al-Qaeda, and one that is determined to create an Islamic caliphate on the Iraq/Syria border, has already seized control of Fallujah and Tikrit, the home town of Saddam Hussein. Its aim is to march on to Baghdad.

. The army of the corrupt Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki – supposedly trained by the West, but little more than a disloyal rabble – is crumbling.

. Kurdish forces in the north have claimed the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. This was done to protect it from the advances of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadi group.

IRAQ STANDS ON THE VERGE of being split apart. The danger now is that Syria, Turkey and Iran will become sucked into the debacle – an escalation that would destabilise the entire region, by sending hundreds of thousands of tragic refugees fleeing and giving ISIL its own territory from which to launch deadly terrorist attacks on the West.

It is no exaggeration to say that the Middle East is in a terrifying state. We arrive here 11 years on from Tony Blair’s illegal invasion of Iraq, based on dodgy intelligence dossiers cooked-up by MI6 chief Sir John Scarlett.

The former British Prime Minister and President George W Bush opened a Pandora’s box by toppling Saddam Hussein and dismantling his army and the police, with no plan in place to prevent a Sunni/Shia civil war breaking out.

If the tumult triggers a spike in oil prices, the global economy could quickly find itself back in a full-blown crisis.

Western leaders are scrabbling for a response – with some experts suggesting an unpalatable alliance with Iran, to maintain some semblance of order in this most high-stakes region.

But what is certain is that, after the West’s frighteningly naïve support for the Arab Spring, and the war mongering of the Blair years, there is no public appetite for military intervention.

Equally certain is that Mr Blair – who many would like to see impeached for lying to Parliament – must be held to account for the chaos and destruction he has caused.

****

Events in Iraq finally dispose(s) of the case for Western military intervention. Many will agree with that with feeling, particularly those who have been firmly opposed to our interventions in Iraq and Libya (as well as those mooted for Syria).

It must now be clear that Western leaders have been downright naïve about the societies of the Middle East and about the prospects for democracy in that region any time soon.

Dictators, we were told, must be removed to allow the people freedom of expression. Indeed so. Nobody doubted the appalling human rights record of Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi and the Assads, but we must surely recognise that their iron grip held in check highly destructive tensions within their own societies. This is not to promote the cause of tyrants and their actions, but to simply point out that the question we should have been asking ourselves before intervening was, and remains, whether the West was in any position to improve matters.

In every case we tended to focus on military success and failed utterly to think of what might happen once the dictator was removed. In Iraq, we were taken to war by Blair and Bush on a prospectus which they must have known was false. First, claims that Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with Al-Qaeda were known by every expert to be incorrect – the two had long been sworn enemies.

Second, there were the chemical weapons the Iraqi despot was alleged to have possessed and which were somehow a threat to UK interests.

British intelligence was distorted to produce the infamous “dossier” which claimed Iraq could deploy those weapons within 45 minutes. In a shameful episode in British intelligence history, the process of gathering and analysis was abused by allowing Tony Blair’s unelected political aide, Alastair Campbell, to ‘edit’ the key intelligence summary. It is this which is the cornerstone of Blair’s case.

Having got us into that war, Blair and Bush had absolutely no idea what to do next. Their mantra that ‘the world is a better place without Saddam’ was no more than a simplistic analysis of an extremely complicated Iraqi society, quite different to those in the West.

Today’s chaos in Iraq has its roots in the damage the West did to Iraqi society in the aftermath of our invasion. We disbanded the army, a key to stability in most Arab countries. This was sheer foolishness.

Similarly, disbanding Saddam’s ruling Ba’ath party – to which most senior Iraqis were obliged to belong, whatever their views – was another act of folly. The West destroyed the very sinews of Iraqi society while imagining our imposition of ‘democracy’ would somehow replace them. The immediate effect of the West’s invasion on the wider region was greatly to increase the power of Iran.

Since the fall of the Shah a generation ago, Iranian influence in the Gulf had been held in check by the forces of its mortal enemies, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. This constraint was blown away by Saddam’s removal, leaving Iran as the leading Shia power in the Muslim world.

Last week, we saw the bitter irony of Iranian special forces reportedly being sent to Baghdad to prop up the floundering regime.

Libya is a very different country to Iraq, but again we have seen the ousting of an unpleasant dictator – and the ensuing anarchy that has stemmed from that.

That country is now splitting at the seams as militia in its east and west fight for influence while the tribes in the south are similarly bellicose. One consequence is a sharply increased flow of migrants from other parts of Africa to Libya seeking to cross to Europe.

In Syria we have, thankfully, steered clear of direct involvement. As events have turned out, President Assad has not only survived but gained control of key areas, while leaving much of the north and east in opposition hands. After three years of a dreadful civil war, many Syrians, Sunnis included, want the fighting to stop.

Not so the Sunni Islamic extremists led by ISIS. They have proved to be the most ruthless and barbaric of occupiers and their blitzkrieg heading for Baghdad and outlying regions is extremely serious for the region.

There are consequences for Britain, too, however. The security services say ‘blowback’ from Syria is one of the main threats to our security; that UK citizens fighting there will return battle-hardened and indoctrinated, seeking to attack our way of life.

The success of ISIS would be a huge boost for the Jihadists and attract even more UK recruits. The luck of the security services cannot hold forever. The number of dangerous suspects is growing and so are the odds against extremist plots being foiled.

****

TONY BLAIR has been branded a ‘medieval crusader’ by his former deputy after the former British prime minister called for a new military campaign in the Middle East.

In an extraordinary self-justifying essay, Mr Blair has suggested that the current chaos in Iraq could have been avoided if the West had bombed Syria.

Mr Blair – now a Middle East ‘peace envoy’ – pointed the finger at the lack of military response against Damascus rather than his own actions for the current crisis.

He said it was ‘bizarre’ that the 2003 Iraq War was being blamed for the sectarian violence that is tearing the country apart. The West should now intervene in both countries to ensure that Islamist fanatics are ‘countered hard, with force’, he added.

We have to liberate ourselves from the notion that “we” have caused this, he wrote. ‘We haven’t.’

In an interview following the publication of Mr Blair’s essay, the former Prime Minister also suggested the lack of intervention could lead to a terror attack in the UK.

He said: ‘If we don’t deal with the Syria issue then the problems are not just going to be for Syria and for the region. The problems are actually going to come back and they are going to hit us very directly even in our own country.’

His comments prompted an avalanche of criticism from both the Left and Right, with even allies suggesting he should ‘stay quiet during moments like this’.

John Prescott, who served as Deputy Prime Minister at the time of the war, accused Mr Blair of trying to take the West ‘back to the crusades’.

‘He says he’s disappointed with what has happened in Iraq… but he wants to invade somewhere else now . . . Your great danger, when you want to go and do these regime changes, you’re back to what Bush called a crusade… put on a white sheet and a red cross, and we’re back to the crusades.’

Clare Short, who also served in Mr Blair’s Cabinet during the war, said he had been ‘absolutely, consistently wrong, wrong, wrong’ on the issue, and branded him a ‘complete American neocon’. Ms Short also added: ‘More bombing will not solve it, it will just exasperate it’.

The First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, said: ‘Tony Blair has now claimed that the invasion of Iraq was about whether or not Saddam Hussein remained in power. Eleven years ago he said it was about weapons of mass destruction.

… ‘He is guilty of breathtaking amnesia on his reasons for invading Iraq and clearly hopes everybody else will conveniently forget his 2003 decision, the consequences of which have played out over 11 years, with hundreds of thousands dead.

… ‘People across the Middle East are now reaping what Tony Blair sowed in 2003.

… ‘No reinterpretation of history will absolve the former prime minister of a direct line of responsibility for this sequence of disasters.’

Conservative MP Charlotte Leslie described Mr Blair’s views as ‘dangerous’, saying: ‘Believing Blair on the Middle East feels about as safe and wise as referring patients to Harold Shipman.’

Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain’s ambassador to the US from 1997 to 2003, said the second Gulf War was ‘perhaps the most significant reason’ for the current sectarian violence.

Former Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell added: ‘Mr Blair actually admitted that the purpose was regime change. Well that’s not what he was telling us back in 2003.’

Downing Street has declined to comment on Mr Blair’s intervention. But Culture Secretary Sajid Javid said the Iraq situation was a ‘huge worry’ but warned there were no plans for military intervention. Labour also distanced itself.

Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander said the Iraqis themselves ‘hold the key to resolving this crisis’.

Mr Blair has acknowledged for the first time that “regime change” had been a key factor in the 2003 war.

He said: ‘It is a bizarre reading of the cauldron that is the Middle East today to claim that, but for the removal of Saddam, we would not have a crisis.’

He added: ‘There is no sensible policy for the West based on indifference. This is, in part, our struggle, whether we like it or not. But every time we put off action, the action we will be forced to take will ultimately be greater.’

The West was also “naïve” about the 2011 Arab Spring and may have to act again in Libya because of the rise of Islamist militants, he added.

****

ANYONE who doubts Tony Blair’s self-aggrandisements over Iraq should look at the 2,800-word essay he has posted on his website in defence of his decision to go to war.

Mr Blair remains in complete denial over the disaster he inflicted not only on the people of Iraq, but also on many millions throughout the Middle East as a result of the 2003 invasion.

It should go without saying that if you start a war, you should be sure that the end result will be demonstrably better than the situation prior to the conflict. Only someone who has lost touch with reality could possibly claim Iraq today is more stable or that life has become better for its inhabitants.

Blair accepts not a shred of responsibility and still refuses to apologise for taking us to war. Let us examine exactly what he says, point by point, and show his false logic for what it is:

• Chemical Weapons

TB: One of the most extraordinary arguments by Tony Blair in his essay is that, because Syria’s President Assad has used chemical weapons, this retrospectively justifies invading Iraq, where no such weapons were found.

‘Is it likely that, knowing what we now know about Assad, Saddam, who had used chemical weapons against both the Iranians and his own people, would have refrained from returning to his old ways?’ he asks.

TRUTH: Leave aside, as too preposterous to merit a response, the argument that because one dictator in one country has used chemical weapons, it follows that another in a completely different country would have done so too.

It was already quite clear by 2003 that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam Hussein was no threat to anyone.

For, following the 8-year Iraq/Iran war and Saddam’s disastrous invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Iraq was being adequately contained militarily by the West.

It was not only subject to punitive economic sanctions and UN arms inspections, but was being bombed almost daily by the US Air Force in Operation Desert Fox. Although Saddam Hussein may have retained a latent ambition to obtain weapons of mass destruction, neither the UN inspectors before the war or the Iraq Survey Group afterwards have ever found any trace of such weapons.

• We’d Beaten Al-Qaeda

TB: Blair says the West had overcome the terrorist threat in Iraq before withdrawing. ‘Three or four years ago, al Qaeda in Iraq was a beaten force,’ he writes.

TRUTH: To say al Qaeda was ever ‘defeated’ in Iraq is nonsense. True, significant damage was done to its infrastructure while US and British troops were still in the country, but it was never defeated. Like all insurgents, the terrorist group merely laid low until the enemy became weak or distracted.

But the key point is that neither al Qaeda nor any other extreme jihadist group had any presence in Iraq before the 2003 invasion. Saddam Hussein was far too brutal and tyrannical to allow that.

After the invasion, insurgents piled into the country. They were encouraged by disenchanted loyalists from Saddam’s Ba’athist party – all Sunni Muslims – who were furious at the toppling of their leader and the rise to power of rival Shia Muslims under Western auspices.

The Sunnis had, after all, ruled in Iraq since 1638, when the Sunni Turkish Ottomans took over Baghdad from the Persians.

• The Arab Spring

TB: If Iraq hadn’t been invaded in 2003, says Blair, Saddam Hussein’s regime would not have survived anyway – ‘it would have been engulfed by the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings that swept Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria.’

TRUTH: The invasion of Iraq and its terrible aftermath was the cause of the Arab Spring. This is because the young people involved in the uprisings throughout the Middle East felt empowered by the removal of Saddam, who had ruled with an iron fist for 24 years.

Many were appalled at what they regarded in Iraq as Western interference in Arab affairs, which encouraged them to overthrow their pro-Western dictators.

It was no surprise subsequently that what started out as a series of anti-West pro-democracy revolutions would soon be hijacked by Islamic extremists.

• Blame Iraq’s PM

TB: Rather than accepting responsibility for himself, Blair says the current Iraqi regime is to blame for the chaos: ‘The sectarianism of the Maliki government snuffed out what was a genuine opportunity to build a cohesive Iraq’.

TRUTH: To blame Prime Minister Maliki takes some beating for sheer gall. Maliki may be corrupt, partisan, authoritarian and a puppet of Iran’s Shia Muslim regime.

But Blair brazenly seems to dismiss the fact that he would never have been in power had the 2003 invasion not taken place. General Colin Powell, US Secretary of State for Defence at the time of the invasion, famously remarked: ‘You break it, you own it’. Blair broke Iraq but simply won’t accept any responsibility for doing so.

• Obama Is Blamed Too

TB: Blair suggests that President Barack Obama should have kept his soldiers in Iraq: ‘There will be a debate about whether the withdrawal of US troops happened too soon’.

TRUTH: US troops had been in Iraq for nearly nine years – from March 2003 to December 2011 – numbering 170,000 in 500 bases at their peak. The war by then had cost the US government some $800billion and 4,500 Americans had been killed.

Does Blair think America should have kept up this loss of blood and treasure indefinitely? In addition, the US had spent a staggering $30billion on training and equipping the Iraqi army.

What they could never do, however long they stayed, was to give them the will to fight.

• Military Strikes

TB: We need a decisive military response, says Blair, ‘including military strikes against extremists in Iraq and Syria’.

TRUTH: As we have seen, military intervention invariably makes things worse. So far, our adventures in the Middle East have served only to increase hatred of the West and recruit still more insurgents to fight alongside our enemy.

But Blair, all too clearly, cannot face this brutal truth. He once said that war is an imperfect instrument for righting human distress. He should pay more heed to his own words.