Analysis: Bordering on Chaos
Council on Foreign Relations
August 31, 2006
Prepared by: Lionel Beehner
"From Cairo to Bombay, on a straight line across a third of the globe, every single country along that line is either at war or one explosion [away] from a war." Richard Holbrooke's grim prognosis (Charlie Rose video) focuses on a number of combustible fault lines: Syria and Lebanon; Lebanon and Israel; Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan; and Afghanistan and Pakistan. Any one of these flashpoints could trigger a third World War, says the former Ambassador to the UN, much like the Serbian Gavrilo Principe's bullet in 1914.
At the center of this stretch of instability lies Iraq. As this new Backgrounder explains, the country is surrounded by six states with oft-competing interests on issues of oil, religion, and democracy. None have quite figured out what shape a future Iraq should take. Turkey and Iran do not favor splitting up the country into three ethno-religious states because of restive Kurdish minorities within their own borders. Iraq's Sunni Arab neighbors have deep reservations about Shiites being in control in Baghdad—a "Shia revival," as CFR Adjunct Senior Fellow Vali R. Nasr has labeled it. Many already suspect Iraq has fallen under the sway of the theocrats in Iran, which, according to this report (PDF) from British think tank Chatham House, now wields more influence in Iraq than the United States.
Many of Iraq's neighbors, not knowing what the future may hold, have sought to improve their ties with Baghdad. Syria, as Joshua Landis tells CFR.org's Bernard Gwertzman, has forged a new dialogue and repaired relations after two decades of mutual distrust.
Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.
Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.
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