Internal solution is best for crisis in Iraq

As our own history shows, chaos — or as the victors might call it, revolutionary restructuring and reeducation, often fills the vacuum left by a retreating imperial force.

Next month’s tragically predictable marching season standoffs in the North — little more than a public expression of an irrational, almost genetic hatred, together with the jockeying for position surrounding the planning — or even justification — of the 1916 centenary celebrations south of the border, are just two reminders of the difficult path travelled in the last century on this small island.

In other parts of the world, that vacuum offers opportunities to the most dangerous and destructive forces — especially when religious extremism and aggressive nationalism are thrown together.

The unfortunate people of Iraq who are abandoning their towns and homes in their tens of thousands to try to stay beyond the reach of the greatly-feared Sunni Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and his Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis) zealots will confirm that age-old truth. The people of Ukraine, possibly to a slightly lesser degree, will confirm it too.

Baghdadi leads a relatively small force, something less than 10,000, but his impact is so terrible, his behaviour so bloody and irrational that there is already a $10m US bounty on his head.

Yesterday’s UN report that hundreds of people were killed, many of them summarily executed, after Baghdadi’s militants overran Mosul this week, and that many women were raped, marks him down as just another out-of-control warlord supported by dangerous fanatics.

Tragically, the UN also reported that government forces had treated the population of Mosul with excessive force. The call to arms from Iraq’s senior Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani yesterday was inevitable as Sunni militants widened their grip in the north and east and threatened to march south. The escalation is a stark reminder of how that country was brutalised in the civil war of 2006-2008. Unfortunately, there seems a very real possibility that conflict will be resumed, with terrible consequences for the moderate population of Iraq still struggling to rebuild their country after that war and the earlier occupation by American forces and their allies.

America and its allies have been accused of tilling the ground for Isis by withdrawing too soon after Saddam Hussein had been removed from power. But the reality is that such interventions are always, or at least they should be, finite. The commitment shown by civil society in Iraq to rebuilding their country has been questioned too, but it is not surprising that after decades of Saddam’s autocracy that the instincts and discipline needed to build a successful society are not as strong as they should be, or are elsewhere.

It must be hoped that Iraq and its neighbours can nullify the threat posed by Isis because this does not seem a moment for international intervention, either on the ground or in the air. International diplomacy already faces more than enough challenges without adding further complexity to the challenges faced by those trying to support and encourage democracy in the face of many and varied challenges.