Decision Postponed: Will the Kirkuk Referendum Ever Happen?

One of the vital factors in winning Kurdish support for the 2005 Iraqi constitution was the promise of a referendum on the status of Kirkuk in northern Iraq. Kurds claim the city and its surrounding area should be part of the semi-independent Kurdistan Regional Government. Their claim matters because near Kirkuk is the most important oilfield in northern Iraq, a field which produces nearly half of that country's oil exports.

If the Kurdish autonomous region gets control of such oil riches, there may be serious consequences. The Baghdad government will lose access to much of its income from oil exports and its already tenuous control of the northern Kurdish region will dwindle to almost nothing. An oil-rich Iraqi Kurdistan will also act as a beacon to encourage separatist tendencies among the Kurdish populations of neighbouring countries such as Turkey and Iran.

The Kirkuk oilfield was first discovered in 1927 and went into production in 1934. For more than seven decades this field has provided the backbone of Iraq's oil industry, although new fields were later discovered in the centre and south of the country. This ageing 'supergiant' oilfield is still said to have proven reserves of over ten billion barrels of oil and it currently produces a million barrels a day. Most of this oil is exported by pipeline across Turkey to the port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea.

Facing a continuing Kurdish insurrection in northern Iraq, the Baghdad government decided in the 1970s to begin a policy of ethnic cleansing in Kirkuk. The majority Kurds and significant minorities such as the Turkomans were expelled from the city and surrounding area, being replaced by Arabs transplanted from central and southern Iraq. This 'Arabization' policy was intensified by Saddam Hussein during the 1980s and by 2000 several hundred thousand people had been removed from their homes in Kirkuk.

After the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Kurds demanded that their people should be allowed to return to Kirkuk. This right of return was granted to them and other expelled groups by the 2005 Iraqi constitution. Arabs were to be sent back to their home areas and compensated. Once the demographic balance had been 'normalized' in Kirkuk, a census would be held and a list of voters prepared for a referendum to decide if Kirkuk should be included in the Kurdish autonomous area.

It was envisaged that the 'normalization' of the population and the carrying out of the census would be completed in the summer of 2007, with the referendum taking place in November 2007. Initial delays in the process led to the date of the referendum being changed to 'the end of 2007', but this timetable has now become unrealistic.

Even in early 2007 the Baghdad government was stating that the Kirkuk referendum would have to be postponed. Now it is claimed that the Kurdish authorities are ready to accept a postponement of the vote for some months, perhaps until May 2008. This delay is said to be due to purely administrative problems, but many Kurds are suspicious and some have threatened a unilateral seizure of Kirkuk if the promised referendum does not take place soon.

The Baghdad government and many American officials would like to see the referendum postponed for some years, if not indefinitely, to avoid provoking bloody ethnic conflict in a part of Iraq which has so far seen comparatively little violence. Neighbouring countries such as Turkey and Iran take a similar view of the proposed referendum because of fears about its impact on their own Kurdish populations. But how long will the Kurds tolerate such postponement?

If the Iraqi Kurds take control of Kirkuk, whether by democratic vote or unilateral action, Turkey has threatened to take military measures against them. This would not only be to protect the Turkoman minority in the city, but also to avoid any possibility of the creation of an oil-rich independent Kurdish state. Of course military action may not be needed to curb the Iraqi Kurds. All Turkey has to do is close the pipeline to Ceyhan and so end oil exports from Kirkuk, although this would probably cause a sharp rise in the world oil price.

The Kurdistan Regional Government is no doubt conscious of these possible actions by rival powers, but it has only limited room to manoeuvre on the Kirkuk issue. A postponement of the referendum for a few months may be acceptable. However, if further postponements follow, direct action can be expected from the more extreme Kurdish nationalists, with possibly dangerous consequences for both Iraq and the wider Middle East.

Muslims Must Lead the Fight Against Islamist Terror

In November 1997 Islamist terrorists attacked foreign tourists visiting the ancient sites at Luxor, Egypt. More than sixty people were killed, mostly tourists, and then the terrorists committed suicide. Ordinary Egyptians were outraged at this crime. When the killers fled into nearby hills, it was significant that their first pursuers were local people not Egyptian security forces.

The Luxor massacre was a step too far for the Egyptian people and in its aftermath they largely rejected Islamist violence. In the five years before Luxor, Islamist terrorists killed more than 1,200 people in Egypt, many of them foreigners. After Luxor the Islamist terrorist movement in the country largely collapsed. Without some measure of popular support, the Islamists could no longer continue their campaign of violence.

In September 2001 Islamist terrorists launched their attacks in the United States using hijacked airliners as suicide weapons. Almost 3,000 people were killed. Despite the rejoicing of a small section of the Islamic world, the mass of the world's Muslims expressed their horror and disgust at these crimes. This widespread Muslim rejection of al-Qaeda and its actions was underlined by events in Afghanistan in the following months.

Osama bin Laden and his associate Ayman al-Zawahiri had hoped that in reaction to the events of 9/11 the United States would plunge into a war against their Taliban hosts in Afghanistan which would be a repeat of the Soviet-Afghan conflict of 1979-89. The Islamic world would rally to the support of Afghanistan, ready for another struggle against the infidel. Nothing like that happened. The world's Muslims would have nothing to do with the extremist criminals in Afghanistan.

Instead of a ten-year jihad, al-Qaeda and the Taliban were routed in a campaign lasting only a few months. Wisely the US-led coalition restricted its participation in the war to air attacks and the provision of special forces units on the ground. Most of the fighting against the Taliban and al-Qaeda was undertaken by their Afghan opponents and by tribal leaders who had found it prudent to change sides.

By early 2002 the Taliban and al-Qaeda seemed to have suffered a decisive defeat. Nor did their few supporters in the wider world have much impact. According to US State Department figures, the number of terrorist attacks around the world in 2002 was lower than in 2001 and, despite tragedies like the Bali bombing, the number of fatalities caused by such attacks had fallen substantially. Those extremists who wished to bring about a bloody 'clash of civilisations' between the West and the Islamic world seemed to have failed.

Then came the historic folly of the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Once it became clear that the swift American victory over Saddam Hussein would not be followed by peace but by an extended guerrilla war, Islamist extremists had the opportunity they had long sought. Thousands of Western troops were battling Muslims in the heart of the Islamic world, and these struggles were broadcast around the world every day. Despite the denunciations of Islamist terror by Muslim governments, increasing numbers of their people were ready to support the resistance struggle in Iraq.

By the end of 2004, the war in Iraq had begun to re-awaken the conflict in Afghanistan. Several years of comparative peace in that country had been wasted. Despite many promises, Western governments had failed to provide sufficient aid and assistance to bring stability and prosperity to Afghanistan. The influence of the Taliban and al-Qaeda began to revive and soon they were launching a new war from their bases in Pakistan. Many Afghans who had rejected their extremism in 2001 were now ready to join them.

Of course one cannot blame the strong revival of Islamist terrorism since 2003 solely on the actions of the West. As Osama bin Laden and his associates have made clear, they see many Muslim governments as being as bad as, if not worse than, the Western 'crusaders'. However, Osama bin Laden's endlessly repeated denunciations of 'crusader aggression' would be just meaningless ranting if the West had not taken military actions which gave them some plausibility.

No amount of Western sophistry could explain away the brutality depicted in the pictures of American military police ill-treating Muslim prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Images are always more powerful than words. Most Muslims will never actively support Islamist terrorism, but enough young men have been radicalised by Western military excesses in Iraq and Afghanistan to give a new lease of life to an extremist movement which seemed to be in terminal decline in 2002.

In their reactions to the Islamist terrorist atrocities of 1997 and 2001, Muslims have shown their instinctive hostility to such crimes. However, since 2003 the terrorists have been able to win support in some parts of the Islamic world by portraying the presence of Western military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan as 'crusader aggression'. Resistance to such forces is said to be as much a duty for Muslims as was resistance to the Soviet presence in Afghanistan during the 1980s.

Only a rapid reduction of this Western military presence can rob the extremists of one of their chief claims to wider Muslim support. Western governments must not see such a withdrawal as being a defeat. A lasting victory over Muslim extremism can only be achieved by other Muslims. The West may provide weapons, intelligence, logistics, and other valuable support, but Muslim governments must have the main role in suppressing Islamist terrorism.

At present Western military operations seem to be largely counter-productive, merely providing new recruits for the terrorists and alienating opinion in much of the Islamic world. It is time to give up the heavy-handed blundering that has characterised Western strategy since 2003 and attempt to formulate a more skilful and focused approach. In this new strategy Muslim countries must be more closely involved in both the planning and execution of anti-terrorist measures. Only then can the perpetrators of the atrocities of 1997 and 2001 be isolated and defeated, having lost all wider support in the Muslim community.

Turkey at the Crossroads: Will an Invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan Set a Dangerous Precedent?

One of the few things Turkey's moderate Islamist government of the Justice and Development (AK) party has in common with the secularist high command of the country's armed forces is a declared wish to take strong action against the terrorists of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and their bases in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The nationalist current is running strongly in Turkey and public hostlity to perceived enemies such as the Kurds and their American backers is both intense and widespread. The Turkish parliament passed a resolution giving the AK government approval to take military action against PKK bases in Iraqi Kurdistan by a massive majority. However, is this Turkish nationalist front really so monolithic?

One reason the PKK is desperate to provoke reckless Turkish military action that will rally all Kurds behind them is because their party is losing ground in the predominantly Kurdish areas of south-east Turkey. The AK government has made a significant effort to win over Kurdish opinion in that region by favourable treatment. This is not just a cynical exercise to win support in the European Union, which the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan is keen for Turkey to join. Erdogan wants to win over the Kurds with kindness, but the Turkish military has put him on the spot and forced him to take up a hard-line nationalist position.

Turkey's military high command tried to use scare tactics to discourage the electorate from returning the AK government to power in the July general election. They claimed there was an Islamist plot to overthrow Turkey's secular republic, but the electors were unimpressed, Erdogan returned to power, and an AK party candidate was appointed president. The military has now played the nationalist card, claiming the AK government is failing to stand up to the PKK terrorists. Reluctantly Erdogan has been forced to support the idea of a Turkish military incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan to destroy PKK bases.

Yet is the Turkish miltary high command itself really that enthusiastic about such an invasion? Past incursions into Iraqi Kurdistan, such as those of 1992 and 1997, undoubtedly did much damage to the PKK, but they could inflict no lasting defeat upon the insurgents. Those past Turkish incursions actually enjoyed the support of some Iraqi Kurd factions who were hostile to the PKK, but it seems unlikely that Kurdish ranks will be split this time. This will worry the Turkish generals as the last thing they want is to become bogged down in a prolonged guerrilla war, especially as this would restrict their chances of launching a coup against the AK government should its current revision of the Turkish constitution prove a clear threat to the secular state.

Thus both Turkish politicians and generals have reservations about an invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan, but the less bellicose alternative of economic sanctions against the Iraqi Kurds also presents problems. Most trade to and from Iraqi Kurdistan goes through Turkey, so an economic blockade would be a major blow. However, Turkish business interests have played a major part in the economic development of Iraqi Kurdistan and any such blockade would hit them as well. The Ankara government may refuse to recognise the semi-independent Kurdistan Regional Government, but on the ground Turkish companies have been happy to do business with the Iraqi Kurds. A short-lived military incursion would do less damage to such business links than a prolonged economic blockade. In any case, whatever the economic considerations, Erdogan and the generals seem to have painted themselves into a corner. Trapped by their nationalist rhetoric, they have increasingly left themselves with only one option: a military invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Such an invasion will put the USA in a very difficult position. The Kurds are the principal American ally within Iraq, but Turkey is America's most important military ally in the Middle East, after Israel. If armed conflict breaks out between the two sides, who will the USA support? To alienate the Kurds is to inject even more chaos into Iraq; to anger the Turks is to risk losing a vital ally at a time when a final showdown between the USA and Iran seems to be approaching. The Iranians would be delighted to join the Turks in action against the Iraqi Kurds and to seek to draw them away from the Americans.

Unless at the last minute the Iraqi Kurds decide to curb the PKK themselves, Turkish politicians and generals have taken such entrenched positions that they must launch some sort of military incursion in the near future. It will no doubt be a limited operation and the USA will seek to ignore it, restricting any criticism to diplomatic protests. Indeed Turkish action against PKK 'terrorist bases' in Iraq may provide a useful precedent for the Americans, who have long been promising to take action against 'terrorist bases' in Iran. Unfortunately while Turkish attacks on Iraqi Kurds are only likely to produce a short-lived crisis, American attacks on the Iranians will produce a conflict which may engulf the whole Middle East.

The New Route to an American War with Iran

Seymour M. Hersh's recent article in 'The New Yorker' outlines his belief that the Bush administration's plan for war with Iran is changing. Hersh believes a massive attack on Iran's nuclear facilities is now to give place to a series of surgical strikes on the bases of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to end that force's supposed operations within Iraq. However, these two plans are far from mutually exclusive and the new strategy may easily lead on to attacks aimed at Iranian nuclear sites.

Although American attempts to convince US and world opinion of active Iranian involvement in attacks on American forces in Iraq have scarcely been more successful than the Bush administration's constant refrain about Iran's nuclear threat, some incident, real or contrived, may occur which will be used by Bush and Cheney to justify air strikes on Iran.

Initially, limited air attacks on Iranian military targets may not prove to be unpopular in the United States. Outsiders rarely grasp that hostility to Iran's revolutionary Islamic government is almost as deep-seated in many parts of the United States as hatred of the American 'Great Satan' is among much of the Iranian people. This is hardly surprising given that the Islamic Republic of Iran is the only country in the world which has humiliated not one but two US presidents: Jimmy Carter over the Tehran hostages crisis in 1979-81 and Ronald Reagan in the Iran-Contra affair of 1986-7.

Even many Congressional Democrats would no doubt be ready to support limited air strikes on Iran if the Iranians could be plausibly linked to incidents in Iraq in which American personnel had been killed. Whatever their reservations about the Iraq war, both Democratic presidential contenders, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, have been noticeably bellicose in their comments about Iran.

Once air attacks on Iranian military targets have begun, they would no doubt become a regular occurrence. American and world opinion would quickly become used to them, familiarity soon blunting initial outrage in most quarters. Like the intermittent Anglo-American air campaign against Saddam Hussein's Iraq during the 1990s, the air strikes on Iran would eventually seem unremarkable. Even Operation Desert Fox in December 1998, a series of major air attacks on Iraq in retaliation for Saddam Hussein's expulsion of UN weapons inspectors, excited only limited international indignation.

Not only would people become used to air attacks on Iran, lessening likely hostile reaction to a shift to nuclear targets, but the attacks themselves would prepare the way for later strikes on nuclear sites by steadily destroying Iranian defences. Anti-aircraft batteries, radar systems, and command and control facilities would have to be destroyed to ensure the safety of US aircraft hitting IRGC 'terrorist bases' however 'limited' the initial air strikes were said to be.

Once Iranian defences have been sufficiently degraded and diplomatic attempts to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions have failed, as they probably will, the Bush administration can easily switch to attacking Iranian nuclear sites in the knowledge that such attacks will provoke a much reduced level of international outrage.

Although most scenarios see the excuse for US air attacks on Iran as being an incident in Iraq involving the deaths of US ground personnel caused by Iranian weapons and/or forces, a maritime incident might have advantages for the United States. The most feared Iranian retaliation in the event of an American attack on the country is an attack on tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz which would send world oil prices rocketing into the stratosphere.

If a maritime incident set off hostilities between the United States and Iran, American naval forces in the Gulf could immediately seek to repeat their success in Operation Praying Mantis back in April 1988. On that occasion US forces crushed Iranian naval power in less than twenty-four hours.

Most large surface units of Iran's navy are obsolete, but in recent years Iran obtained three Kilo class diesel attack submarines from Russia. US naval commanders have expressed concern about the threat posed by these vessels to Gulf shipping and they will no doubt welcome the opportunity to destroy them as soon as possible.

Of course the Iranians have so far done their best to avoid provoking the Americans. The arrest of the British naval boarding party in March was a local IRGC initiative and the incident was soon brought to a close by the Tehran government before the Americans could exploit their ally's difficulty as an excuse for war. If a suitable incident does not arise soon, Bush and Cheney may have to create one to justify their planned attack on Iran. Perhaps US naval vessels will be sent into Iranian territorial waters in the hope of provoking a violent response. This was what was done in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 and resulted in the famous 'incident' which led to full American participation in the Vietnam War. Will the American Congress and people fall for the same trick a second time?

Iraq and the O Word

Alan Greenspan, former head of the US Federal Reserve Bank, committed the ultimate crime. He mentioned the 'O word' in connection with America's intervention in Iraq. For such a major public figure to suggest that oil had anything to do with the American decision to invade Iraq in 2003 is heresy of the first order. The Bush administration was quick to criticise Greenspan, and he was even quicker to 'clarify' his statement so that it did not contradict the official line that the need to destroy weapons of mass destruction and to bring democracy to Iraq were the only reasons for American intervention in that country.

Of course to most reasonable people Greenspan's assertion seems no more than a statement of the obvious. No doubt many considerations, strategic, political, and economic, weighed on President Bush and his associates when deciding whether to attack Iraq, but oil was undoubtedly among those considerations. The idea that any responsible statesman would invade one of the world's major oil-producing states without giving thought to what impact this would have on world oil trade is obviously absurd.

The Bush administration that first took office in January 2001 has closer links to the US oil industry than any previous government in American history. It was bound to be willing to help that industry in overcoming its problems, especially if those problems posed a threat to America's international power.

Independent private oil companies, such as the American companies, are facing difficult times. The world's oil is running out and most of those dwindling supplies are controlled by state-owned national oil companies. Some of these national companies are run by American allies like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, but others belong to hostile states such as Iran and Venezuela. National oil companies either exclude all foreign oil companies or only permit their participation on terms favourable to the host country.

Of the ten top oil companies in the world ranked by oil reserves under their control, only one is an independent oil company. That one is Lukoil of Russia, and many analysts would question its degree of independence from control by the Russian government. America's largest oil company, ExxonMobil, only comes in at number twelve in this ranking, having only a twentieth of the reserves held by the number one oil company, Saudi Aramco, the national oil company of Saudi Arabia.

Desperate to find new oil reserves, the world's independent oil companies are venturing into the far corners of the world. However, such exploration is increasingly expensive and as yet has failed to find any major new oil fields. How much more convenient it would be for independent oil companies if they could have largely unfettered access to an established oil-producing country where the power of the national oil company had been severely limited. Many people believe that this is the scenario that the Bush administration has been trying to achieve in Iraq to benefit US oil companies.

Iraqi oil production peaked at the end of the 1970s at more than three million barrels per day. Then the consequences of the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88 and the war over Kuwait in 1990-91 severely crippled Iraqi output for many years. On the eve of the US invasion in 2003 Iraqi oil production was around 1.5 million barrels per day. Today output is over two million barrels per day, but further expansion is held back by insurgent sabotage and antiquated infrastructure.

In an Iraq under American control, a friendly government could be installed and it would then distribute lucrative contracts to independent oil companies, mostly American, to exploit the country's oil wealth. Foreign oil companies which did not meet with American approval, such as those of China and Russia, would be kept out of Iraq. Although a nominal Iraqi national oil company would probably be preserved, real power and profits would belong to US oil companies.

If this is indeed the American scenario for the future development of Iraq's oil industry, it is only making slow progress. The poor security situation in the country does much to discourage oil company activity, although most of Iraq's oil reserves are in the Kurdish north and the Shiite south, areas with less violence than elsewhere. Even the legal basis for a pro-American oil regime in Iraq has not yet been laid.

On those rare occasions when the draft Iraqi oil law is even mentioned in Western media, attention is concentrated on the provisions to share oil royalties equitably among the different regions of Iraq. It is held that this will increase national reconciliation and return peace and prosperity to Iraq. Less attention is given to the provisions which provide unusually favourable terms to foreign oil companies operating in Iraq. Some critics say foreign companies may obtain control of two thirds of Iraq's oil fields. No doubt such companies will have to meet American as well as Iraqi approval before they can operate in the country.

Much to the fury of the Bush administration, Iraq's parliament preferred to take a holiday this summer rather than pass the new oil measure into law, It may become law in the next few months and foreign oil companies are already making plans to take advantage of its generous provisions in their favour. However, do most Iraqis really wish to be the only country in the Middle East that has largely handed over its oil industry to foreign private companies, reverting to a situation that last existed in the 1950s?

Hitting Iran: Surgical Strike or Regional War?

Military action is a last resort, we are told. Intense diplomacy is the way forward. Sanctions will curb the Iranian nuclear threat. However, with politicians in both the United States and Iran taking up unyielding positions, the risk of military conflict between the two countries remains high. Undoubtedly the USA and its allies have contingency plans for a military attack on Iran. President Bush has made clear his resolve that the Iranians will not be allowed to build up a nuclear capacity that might allow them to develop nuclear weapons.

Supporters of a pre-emptive attack on Iran's nuclear facilities like to present that option as a modern version of Israel's air strike on the Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981. Then Israeli bombers carried out a surgical strike on Iraq's first nuclear reactor while it was still under construction. The facility was heavily damaged and Saddam Hussein's nuclear plans were put back by years. Embroiled in war with Iran, the Iraqi dictator could do little to retaliate against Israel, while the international community restricted itself to diplomatic condemnation of the raid.

All that was more than twenty-five years ago. Today any serious attack on Iran's nuclear sites would require a much bigger military operation than the Osirak raid. Widely scattered, well defended, and with many important facilities hidden underground, Iranian nuclear sites could only be destroyed by a concerted attack from overwhelming air power, including aircraft and missiles. There are a dozen confirmed or suspected nuclear facilities in Iran, of which those at Bushehr, Arak, Natanz and Isfahan are the most important. The Iranians have sworn to protect these facilities with all their forces. At the very least, American attackers would need to destroy Iranian air defences (radars, missiles and airfields) to ensure their own safety.

Iran has threatened to respond to any attack with missile strikes on Israel and on American bases in the Persian Gulf area. Thus attacks on Iranian air defences would need to be extended to include the destruction of Iranian long-range missile forces. Similarly, Iran has threatened to attack tankers in the Gulf and close its entrance at the Strait of Hormuz so as to deal a major blow to world oil trade. To pre-empt this possible mode of retaliation, American attackers would also have to neutralise Iranian naval forces, both the regular navy and the 'mosquito fleet' of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Thus it is obvious that any major American attack on Iranian nuclear facilities could not just be a case of hitting a few sites in a surgical strike. A large scale onslaught on all Iran's air, naval and missile forces, plus command and control systems, would be necessary to remove Iranian defences and to prevent any serious military retaliation by that country.

The current Iranian government appears to think that it can use its co-religionists, the Shias of Iraq, as a threat to restrain the Americans from attacking Iran's nuclear facilities. They believe Iraqi Shias will rise up and attack American and other coalition forces if Iran is attacked. This may be a dangerous miscalculation, as the Iraqi Shias have disappointed Iranian expectations in the past. During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s the Shias of Iraq, the majority population, did not rise up in any numbers to support Iran. This reluctance might be attributed to the efficiency of Saddam Hussein's repressive apparatus, but it gives pause for thought.

Similarly, a country is not an automatic friend of Iran just because it has a Shia majority in its population. This is shown by the ambivalent relationship between Iran and Azerbaijan, with the latter country now largely seen as being in the Western camp. Indeed there has been talk of establishing US bases in Azerbaijan on Iran's north-western border.

Shias now have a degree of political dominance in Iraq that they have not enjoyed for more than 350 years. While some Shia militants might be ready to launch attacks in the aftermath of an American assault on Iran, many Iraqi Shias might well refuse to do so, fearing to lose all their poltical gains since 2003. If Iran actually sent troops into Iraq there is no guarantee they would be well received by the local population.

If those wishing to attack Iran are presenting a misleading picture of the nature of such a strike, many Iranians cling to possibly false hopes that fear of Shia reaction in Iraq will discourage the Americans from taking military action. The result of miscalculations on both sides may well be that what is billed as a surgical strike will instead produce a regional war which will do incalculable damage to the world economy.

Nevertheless a military showdown may be avoided. Twice before Iran has found itself on the brink of war with the United States. First in 1988 during the so-called 'tanker war' in the Gulf, and secondly after the Iranian-backed terrorist attack on American military personnel at Khobar in Saudi Arabia in 1996. On both occasions the Iranians turned away from conflict. Despite the strident rhetoric of President Ahmadinejad and his colleagues, we must hope that moderates in the Iranian government will also prevail on this occasion.

A Restored Caliphate: The Impossible Dream?

Recently the International Caliphate Conference was held in Jakarta, Indonesia. It was organised by Hizb ut-Tahrir ('Party of Liberation') and was said to be attended by 80-100,000 people. Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international Sunni pan-Islamic organisation whose aim is to unite all the Muslim countries of the world in a unitary Islamic state or caliphate, ruled by Islamic law and headed by an elected ruler, the caliph. Hizb ut-Tahrir was founded in Jerusalem in 1953 and today has an estimated one million members worldwide.



The caliph is traditionally the leader of the worldwide Islamic community and the title (which means 'successor') goes back to the period after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632. The first four caliphs (Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali) believed themselves to be both the spiritual and political leaders of the Islamic community which had chosen them. However, in 661 the Umayyad family seized control of the Islamic state and made the office of caliph hereditary in the ruling dynasty.



In 750 the Abbasid family ousted the Umayyads and became the new line of caliphs. The Abbasid caliphate would last for centuries, but by the tenth century the unity of Islam had been shattered, new Muslim states had been created, and even rival caliphates had been set up. In North Africa the Fatimids set up a Shiite caliphate in opposition to the Sunni Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad and it lasted from 909 to 1171. One branch of the Umayyad family had fled to Spain when the Abbasids seized the caliphate. In 929 their descendants established their own caliphate in Cordoba and it endured until 1031.



In any case, during the tenth century the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad lost most of his political power and was largely preserved as a religious figurehead by competing court factions. Another rival caliphate was set up by the Almohad dynasty in North Africa and Spain, lasting from 1145 to 1269, but it received little recognition outside those areas.



The Abbasid caliphate ended in 1258 when Baghdad was destroyed by the Mongols, but a few survivors from the Abbasid family escaped to Cairo in Egypt. There the Mamluk sultans allowed them to establish a pale imitation of the old caliphate, but always under Mamluk control. This puppet caliphate was largely ignored by other Muslim states. Nevertheless Mamluk control of the three holiest Muslim cities - Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem - did much to support their claims to leadership in the Muslim world.



The conquest of the Mamluk empire by the Ottoman Turkish sultan Selim I in 1517 allowed the Ottomans to claim the title of caliph. However, it was not a title they made much use of before the late nineteenth century. Then, as Ottoman power began to wane, the sultan came to see that his position as titular leader of the world's Muslims might have political benefits.

Sultan Abdul Hamid II (reigned 1876-1909) used his position as caliph to call upon Muslims in the Russian empire to revolt during the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78. Sultan Mehmed V (reigned 1909-1918) similarly called upon the Muslim inhabitants of the Russian, French and British empires to rise up against their Christian rulers during the early months of the First World War. In neither case did the caliph's call receive much of a response, but the Russian,French and British governments were certainly worried that there might be revolts among their Muslim subjects. By exploiting his position as caliph the Ottoman sultan could at least cause alarm among his enemies.

For this reason there was considerable fear among the world's Muslims that after 1918 the victorious allied powers would seek to strip the Ottoman sultan of his position as caliph. The concern was particularly strong in British India where the Khilafat movement arose and posed the biggest Muslim threat to British rule since the Indian Mutiny of 1857.

However, it was not to be the allies who ended the caliphate but the Turks. They deposed the Ottoman sultan in 1922 and established a Turkish republic. Its leader, Kemal Ataturk, was determined to create a secular Turkish state and in 1924 he abolished the caliphate. For over a thousand years there had always been at least a nominal leader of the world's Muslims. Now that position was gone and consternation spread throughout the Islamic world. However, attempts to save the caliphate were to prove unsuccessful.

Shortly after the Turkish abolition decree, Hussein bin Ali, ruler of the Hejaz, which contained the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina, proclaimed himself caliph, but his claim went unrecognised by the wider Muslim world. Soon afterwards the Hejaz was conquered by Abdul Aziz ibn Saud from central Arabia. The Saudi ruler made it clear that he would not claim the caliphate, while a Muslim conference held in Cairo in 1926 to discuss its revival got nowhere. Later some figures in the Muslim world thought of claiming the title of caliph, the most unlikely being the worldly King Farouk of Egypt, but as a new world order took shape after the Second World War, it seemed that the caliphate had been consigned to history.

Muslim organisations aiming to restore the caliphate, such as Hizb ut-Tahrir, have grown in strength in recent decades, but their chances of success do not seem to have increased. When the Ottoman empire was at its zenith, it was the military power of the sultan that made him the leader of the Muslim world rather than his title of caliph. When Ottoman power was declining, the sultan's attempts to use his position as caliph as a political weapon could not hide the fact that his power was disappearing and few other Muslims wanted to die for his cause. Caliph is an empty title without real power to back it up.

A number of Islamist groups, including Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda, have declared an interest in restoring the worldwide caliphate, but none has the power to achieve that aim. Although Hizb ut-Tahrir has been accused of terrorist links and is banned in some countries of the Middle East and Central Asia, its leaders claim to want a restoration of the caliphate by peaceful means. However, the Islamic world is divided into more than fifty countries and it seems unlikely that all those governments would ever surrender their powers to some Islamic super-state. For the foreseeable future it seems that the restoration of the caliphate must remain a dream.

Turkish Fears and Kurdish Dreams: The Making of a New Iraq Crisis?

In 1991 the Ukraine became an independent country and Ukrainians ceased to be the largest ethnic group in the world without a state of their own. That unhappy distinction then passed to the Kurds, some 25-30 million people, who are currently spread across Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria.

Yet 1991 was not a year devoid of hope for the Kurds. After their failed uprising against Saddam Hussein, the Kurds of Iraq were given a degree of protection by the USA and Britain. This allowed Iraqi Kurdistan to achieve a semi-independent status. After the Kurdish assistance to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was recognised as a legitimate authority within the country by the 2005 Iraqi constitution.

Kurds have achieved a semi-autonomous status within Iraq, so why has such success brought almost 150,000 Turkish troops to the borders of Iraq with the apparent intention of invading Iraqi Kurdistan?

The majority of the world's Kurds live in south-east Turkey and make up around twenty per cent of that country's population. Since the republic of Turkey was established in 1923, its rulers have always acted ruthlessly to suppress any separatist tendencies among Turkish Kurds. Apart from participation in the Korean War (1950-53) and invading Cyprus in 1974, the combat experience of the Turkish army since 1923 has largely consisted of crushing Kurdish uprisings.

The most recent outbreak began in 1984 and was organised by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). During the 1990s Turkish troops carried out a number of incursions into Iraqi Kurdistan aimed at destroying PKK bases. However, it was only after the capture of the organisation's leader, Abdullah Ocalan, in 1999 that PKK activities in Turkey began to decline.

In recent years a revived PKK has once again become active in south-east Turkey. The Turkish army is now apparently preparing to return to its 1990s strategy of launching incursions into Iraqi Kurdistan to attack PKK bases. However, there is now talk of Turkey establishing a buffer zone on Iraqi soil to keep PKK forces away from the Kurdish areas of Turkey. Given the long, bloody and unhappy history of Israel's anti-terrorist buffer zone in southern Lebanon from 1978 to 2000, this does not seem a good idea.

However, Turkish nationalists are increasingly alarmed by the growing independence of the KRG in Iraq and the example it sets for the Kurds of Turkey. If the promised referendum in Kirkuk before the end of 2007 brings that city and its neighbouring oil fields into the area under KRG control, Iraqi Kurdistan will have great wealth as well as semi-independence. Some Turkish generals have already made it clear that if the KRG's military forces resist their operations against the PKK, they will be hapy to crush those forces as well.

Although most Iraqi Kurds are ready to put aside dreams of complete independence for the moment, Turkish fears of such dreams may well compel them to undertake an unwise military adventure in Iraq that can only further destabilise the region, seriously damage Turkish relations with the USA, and probably extinguish Turkish hopes of EU membership.

The re-election of the Justice and Development (AK) party government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey's July general election may have done something to reduce the likelihood of a Turkish invasion of Iraqi Kurdistan. The AK party has won support in the Kurdish areas of south-east Tukey; it seems ready to co-operate with the Kurdish deputies in the new parliament; and it has opened negotiations with the Baghdad government in hopes of finding a diplomatic solution to the problem of PKK bases in Iraq.

Nevertheless the large Turkish army assembled on Iraq's northern border cannot be maintained there indefinitely. If there is no sign of a real settlement that will end PKK attacks from Iraq, the Turkish generals may force the AK government to approve an attack before the onset of winter ends the prospect of large-scale military operations in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan this year.

Christian-Muslim Conflict: Distant Wars and Local Echoes

[This piece was originally to be the prologue of my book 'Faith and Sword: A Short History of Christian-Muslim Conflict' (London, 2006), but was deleted before publication.]



This short book was originally intended to be an overview of the influence of sea power on Christian-Muslim conflict over the centuries. However, while still seeking to demonstrate the often forgotten importance of maritime activities and strategy in Christian-Muslim warfare, the story has been widened to include land warfare and, in more recent times, the impact of air power.



Traditionally the great Muslim empires of the last millenium have been seen primarily as land powers, yet in many areas Christian-Muslim conflict resolved itself into a battle for the control of seas. Throughout all the centuries since the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 one area of constant Christian-Muslim confrontation has been the Mediterranean Sea. In the sixteenth century the Portuguese brought the oceanic naval power of Christian Europe to the Indian Ocean for the first time, and Christian-Muslim warfare was extended to that ocean and its offshoots, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Between the 1760s and the 1870s control of the Black Sea was the prize at stake in the wars between the growing Orthodox Christian empire of Russia and the declining Muslim empire of the Ottoman Turks.



Nevertheless one cannot deny that for centuries it was the military power of the Muslims on land which seemed to pose the greatest threat to the survival of Christian Europe. Between the eighth and the fifteenth centuries the Christians fought to expel the Muslim invaders from Spain and Portugal. Yet even before this threat had been finally removed from south-west Europe, a new Muslim military threat, the Ottoman Turks, was advancing across south-east Europe. That Muslim presence in Europe would not be removed until the first decades of the twentieth century.

Yet during the middle ages the Christians of Europe had delivered a counter-attack which struck at the heartlands of Islam. It was growing Christian maritime power in the Mediterranean that was one of the factors which allowed the crusaders to reach the Holy Land at the end of the eleventh century and take Jerusalem from the Muslims. The success of the First Crusade led to the creation of Christian states in Palestine and Syria which survived for almost two centuries before finally being destroyed by the Muslims. Although this Christian success was comparatively short-lived, memories of it lived on in European consciousness.

Indeed the struggle against Islam was one of the fundamental factors that shaped the Europe which emerged from the middle ages into the modern world. It was an influence that spread widely across Christendom, touching places far removed from the main areas of direct Christian-Muslim warfare. The final draft of this book was completed during a stay in Herefordshire, a largely agricultural county of England on the border with Wales. Such an area might seem remote from the battlefields where cross and crescent clashed, but even here links with that struggle can still be found.

North of the small town of Leominster is Croft Castle, which was for generations the home of the Crofts, a family who came originally from Normandy in France. According to family tradition an ancestor, Jasper de Croft, went on the First Crusade and was knighted by one of its leaders, Godfrey of Bouillon, after the crusaders took the city of Jerusalem from the Muslims in 1099.

South of Leominster, tucked away in a wooded valley, is Dinmore Manor. This estate was once a possession, known as a Commandery, of the Knights of the Hospital of St. John in Jerusalem. This religious military order, led by warrior monks, was tasked with the defence of the lands in Palestine and Syria which had been won for the Christians by the First Crusade. Landed estates in western Europe, such as Dinmore Manor, provided the money and men to support this distant struggle against the Muslims. Eventually the knights were driven out of the Holy Land, but they continued their war against Islam at sea, basing their galley fleet at the island of Rhodes. One of the last Commanders of Dinmore, Sir John Buck, was killed fighting the Ottoman Turks when they besieged Rhodes in 1522.

In Leominster itself, the town's war memorial includes the names of men of the Herefordshire Regiment who died in Palestine during the First World War while driving the Turks out of the Holy Land. Before Christmas 1917 the British had captured Jerusalem, becoming the first Christian conquerors of that holy city since the soldiers of the First Crusade in 1099. That the Christian-Muslim struggle for Jerusalem should leave such strong traces in a part of England so distant from the Holy Land is a measure of the long and intense nature of that conflict. Jerusalem was the greatest prize, and at Jerusalem this story can begin.

Will the Iraqi Kurds Sacrifice the PKK?

A Turkish army stands on the northern border of Iraq. It is ready to invade Iraqi Kurdistan and destroy the bases of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), whose guerrillas have carried out numerous attacks in south-east Turkey. The PKK and the Iraqi Kurds have promised to resist any Turkish invasion.

The division between Turks and Kurds seems simple, but as in so many disputes in the Middle East, the reality is more complicated. The Turks invaded Iraqi Kurdistan in pursuit of the PKK on a number of occasions during the 1990s. The two principal incursions were in 1992 and 1997. On both occasions Iraqi Kurdish forces assisted the Turkish army in its attacks on the PKK.

It seems entirely possible that a new Turkish attack on PKK bases may once again enjoy local Kurdish support, or the Iraqi Kurds may suppress the PKK themselves, thus removing the need for any Turkish invasion. Both the United States and the government of Iraq undoubtedly hope the latter possibility will become reality.

After their failed uprising against Saddam Hussein in March 1991, Iraq's Kurds eventually received Anglo-American protection which allowed them to establish a safe area in the north of the country. In 1992 the main Kurdish nationalist parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of Massoud Barzani and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) of Jalal Talabani, set up the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

The new semi-independent Kurdish state was heavily dependent for its economic survival on trade routes through Turkey. As PKK attacks in Turkey increased during 1992, Ankara forced the KRG to impose restrictions on PKK activities. In retaliation the PKK declared a blockade of Iraqi Kurdistan in July and halted truck traffic by violent intimidation.

This action encouraged the Iraqi Kurds to join in Turkish plans to attack PKK bases in Iraq. In October and November 1992 the Turkish army crossed the border and KRG forces assisted them in their operations against the PKK. Soon most of the 5,000 PKK fighters had been killed, had fled to Iran, or had surrendered to the KRG, which refused to hand them over to the Turks.

The KRG's aid to the Turks angered many Kurdish nationalists, but the issue was soon forgotten as the KDP and the PUK fell out and by 1994 the two parties were at war. The United States tried to halt this Kurdish civil war, but other nations preferred to take sides, Turkey supporting the KDP and Iran the PUK. In 1996 the KDP even called in the help of Saddam Hussein's forces to drive the PUK back to the Iranian border.

With the Iraqi Kurds so bitterly divided, it seemed unsurprising that when Turkey launched another incursion into Iraq in May 1997 the KDP should assist Turkish troops against the PKK. To the KDP, the PKK were not brother Kurds but political rivals. Similarly, later in 1997 when the PUK launched an offensive against the KDP, Turkish air attacks helped to defeat it.

In the new Iraq created since 2003, the Kurds have sought to project an image of unity, with past disputes apparently forgotten. Jalal Talabani is now president of Iraq, while Massoud Barzani is president of the KRG. Feelings of Kurdish solidarity might seem to dictate that they should support the PKK against Turkey, but as already noted, Iraqi Kurds have been ready to assist the Turks against the PKK before. Also Iraqi Kurdistan is still very dependent on Turkey for its economic prosperity.

Iraqi Kurds know that in any serious military clash between them and the Turks the USA will be forced to back Turkey, the most important American ally in the Middle East after Israel. Iraqi Kurdistan has become the nearest thing to an independent state that the Kurdish nation has achieved in its modern history. It seems possible that rather than risk losing this state the Iraqi Kurds will sacrifice the PKK, preferably by suppressing its bases themselves to avoid another Turkish invasion of their territory.

Will War Spread Across the Horn of Africa?

After the tragedy of 9/11 new American bases for the 'war on terror' were set up around the Middle East. One of the more surprising sites was an old French Foreign Legion barracks in the small republic of Djibouti. This became the home of Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa, a unit of US Central Command. (In 2007-8 it will be transferred to the new US Africa Command.)

In fact this was an important strategic position. The United States possessed bases in the Persian Gulf, but it had previously had none in the Red Sea/Gulf of Aden area. This region possesses a maritime choke point similar to the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf. This is Bab al Mandeb, the strait lying between Yemen to the north and Djibouti to the south, a maritime area where terrorist attacks could be made on shipping heading to and from the Suez Canal. The American warship USS Cole had already been attacked by al-Qaeda terrorists in Aden harbour in 2000, and a French tanker was also struck some time later off the coast of Yemen.

However, the terrorist danger was not just at sea. The area of responsibility of the US task force in Djibouti included all the countries of the Horn of Africa, including Kenya on its southern border. The US embassy in Kenya's capital Nairobi was one of the two American diplomatic missions in East Afica attacked by al-Qaeda in 1998.

The principal area of instability in the Horn of Africa is Somalia, a country which has not had a functioning central government since 1991. The common Western view of Somalia sees it as the lawless land of 'Black Hawk Down', the American military defeat in its capital Mogadishu in 1993. Yet the fact is that much of Somalia has enjoyed comparative peace since the central government collapsed sixteen years ago.

The north of the country is controlled by two autonomous states. In the actual Horn of Africa is Puntland, which declared autonomy in 1998, but is ready to rejoin a federal Somalia at some future date. In the north-west is Somaliland (covering the territory of the old colony of British Somaliland), which declared its independence in 1991. Although not recognised by any other country, Somaliland cherishes its independence and may be reluctant to join a reconstituted Somalia.

Somaliland and Puntland have been largely peaceful in recent years, although ports in the latter state have been used as bases for pirates. It is southern Somalia, especially in and around the capital Mogadishu, that has seen the most violence since 1991, with warfare between local clans who often receive arms and other support from foreign countries.

The United Nations approved the creation of a Somali Transitional Government (STG), initially outside the country, with the aim of restoring peace and unity to Somalia as soon as possible. By 2006 the STG had finally established itself in Somalia, holding a small area centred on the town of Baidoa near the border with Ethiopia.

Meanwhile the warring clans of southern Somalia had finally been subdued by the forces of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC). This Islamist body brought peace and order to Mogadishu and other areas for the first time in years. However, the UIC's similarity to the Taliban movement which took over Afghanistan in the 1990s alarmed the United States, especially as there were also claims that the UIC had links with al-Qaeda. Some of the 1998 embassy bombers were said to be hiding in southern Somalia.

When the UIC seemed about to move against the STG in Baidoa, the United States encouraged Ethiopia, its principal ally in the region, to intervene in Somalia, despite the long history of enmity between Somalis and Ethiopians. In December 2006 Ethiopian forces swept across southern Somalia, defeating the UIC and installing the STG in Mogadishu. The United States provided direct assistance by mounting air attacks, probably co-ordinated from Djibouti, on supposed al-Qaeda bases in southern Somalia.

After their victory the Ethiopians claimed they were anxious to withdraw from Somalia and hand over security to STG forces and a peace-keeping force from the African Union. Only a few troops for the latter force have arrived in Mogadishu and Ethiopian forces continue to battle Islamist and clan forces in the capital. Recent attempts to hold a national reconciliation conference in Mogadishu have been hindered by the continued fighting. Now the United Nations has joined the STG and the Ethiopians in blaming such trouble on arms being supplied to the rebels by Eritrea.

Similar allegations have been made against Eritrea in relation to the arming of Somali rebels in the Ogaden region of south-east Ethiopia. This has long been an area bitterly disputed between Somalia and Ethiopia. In 1977 Somalia invaded and 'liberated' the Ogaden, but in the following year the Ethiopians drove out the invaders and took back the province.

Despite this Ethiopian success, the majority of the Ogaden's population are ethnic Somalis and they continue to resent being ruled by the Ethiopian government in Addis Ababa. The bloody raid by Ogaden Somali rebels on a Chinese oil company camp at Abole in April 2007 gave notice that the rebels continue to be an active and dangerous force. One reason the Ethiopians invaded Somalia was because they feared that the UIC would stir up the Ogaden Somalis, but this may be happening anyway.

The upsurge of fighting in the Ogaden may well be another stage in the spreading of conflict across the Horn of Africa which commentators have long feared. First Somalia, now the Ogaden. Ethiopia has accused Eritrea of being active behind the scenes in both places. How long before the border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which raged between 1998 and 2000, breaks out again? If Ethiopia has to fight on three fronts, how long will it be before that country calls for more American aid than can be provided by the task force in Djibouti?

Divided Islam: An Old Conflict Revived?

Westerners believed that the centuries-old struggle between Christianity and Islam ended with their victory at the end of the First World War. Events since the tragedy of 9/11 have now revived in a new form this ancient conflict which was thought to have been settled. In a somewhat similar fashion, Sunni Muslims, the majority in the Muslim world, long believed that the struggle between them and the Shia minority in Islam had been decided in their favour during the first half of the seventeenth century. However, since 1979, and even more so since 2001, Muslims have had to face the fact that the old clash between Sunnis and Shias may be reviving in a new and threatening fashion.

When the Safavid dynasty began to impose Shia Islam on the inhabitants of Iran at the start of the sixteenth century, they were creating the most powerful Shia state since the collapse of the Fatimid empire three hundred years earlier. The Ottoman Turkish sultans, believing themselves to be the leaders of orthodox Islam, decided to crush their new heretic neighbours, but it proved to be a long and difficult struggle.

The Ottoman-Safavid wars lasted from 1514 to 1639 and the area which is now Iraq was an important battleground, where the many local Shias preferred Iranian rule to that of the Sunni Ottoman sultans. Suleiman the Magnificent captured Baghdad from the Iranians in 1534, but the latter retook the city early in the seventeenth century. Sultan Murad IV recovered Baghdad in 1638 and forced the Safavid ruler to make peace in the following year. This treaty marked the end of the long Ottoman-Safavid wars and the Sunni Ottomans had finally gained the upper hand over their Shia opponents. The frontier between the two states would remain largely unchanged until the twentieth century.

To underline Sunni success, Iran, the only Shia state in the world, went into steady decline over the next two centuries. It was no longer a threat to its neighbours and it only narrowly avoided being destroyed by the Russian and British empires. Iran began to revive under the Pahlavi dynasty in the mid-twentieth century, but the Pahlavi rulers were dedicated Westernizers with little interest in religion. Only after the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran did Shia religious fundamentalism once again appear a threat to its neighbours. The Iran-Iraq war from 1980 to 1988 did much to neutralize this threat. Most Sunni Muslims, especially in Arab countries, supported Saddam Hussein in his struggle against Shia Iran.

By 2001 the threat from Shia Iran seemed to have been contained, and the country faced bitter enemies on two sides: Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. As a consequence of 9/11, and at no cost to the Iranians, the United States removed both these threats over the next few years. Hezbollah, Iran's proxy in Lebanon, fought Israel to a stalemate in the summer war of 2006, further enhancing the status of Shias in the Islamic world. These events, along with its growing nuclear ambitions, have allowed Shia Iran to pose as a regional superpower in the Middle East, a status it last enjoyed in the early seventeenth century.

Now the talk is of a Shia revival threatening not just the West but all of Sunni Islam. A 'Shia crescent' is said to be spreading across the Middle East, alarming all Sunni Arab countries. How will they respond to this revival of the Sunni/Shia conflict which Ottoman victory seemed to have ended nearly four centuries ago?

Muslim states were ready to join the American-led coalition against Saddam Hussein during the Gulf crisis of 1990-91. Will Sunni Arab countries like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia be ready to join the United States and its allies in a new struggle against Shia Iran? The recent American decision to make huge arms sales to the Arab Gulf states to ensure their security in face of the supposed Iranian threat might seem to indicate a deepening of the Sunni/Shia split.

The dangers inherent in that split have even caused Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's second in command, to stress the need for unity among Muslims. Al-Qaeda's leaders were previously well known for their hostility to Shias, but now apparently they have seen the error of their ways.

The split between Protestants and Catholics in the sixteenth century Reformation destroyed the unity of Christendom. Will a further deepening of the antipathy between Sunnis and Shias create a fatal division within the Islamic world? Since the 1960s Muslims have made great efforts to build pan-Islamic international bodies, such as the Organizaton of the Islamic Conference. Will they now allow themselves to be divided once more? They would do well to rememer that the steady decline of Islamic power in the world from 1700 onwards was not just due to Western technological superiority, but also to chronic divisions within the Islamic world.

A Tale of Three Revolts

Historical comparisons can both inform and mislead. On one level the present insurgency in Iraq against predominantly American and British forces has similarities with the 1920 Iraq revolt against the British and the 1899-1902 Philippines insurgency against the United States.

In 1898 the Americans landed in the Philippines and claimed to be liberating the inhabitants from oppressive Spanish rule. In 1917-18 the British freed Iraq from Ottoman Turkish rule and promised independence to the Arabs. In 2003 the Anglo-American forces overthrew Saddam Hussein and promised freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people. In all three cases significant sections of the liberated populations soon had reason to question the motives of their liberators and to rise in revolt against them.

Filipino nationalists led by Emilio Aguinaldo believed they had been promised independence by the United States and fought the Americans for three years in an attempt to win it. Unfortunately the rebels initially fought conventional battles with the American army in which they were defeated with heavy losses. Turning to guerrilla warfare, Aguinaldo's men had more success, but they were eventually worn down by a twin-track American strategy, combining military operations with medical and social improvement programmes to win support among the mass of the population. Disclaiming the label of imperialists, the Americans claimed to be acting as trustees in the Philippines, merely educating the Filipinos for eventual independence. This was achieved after the Second World War, but the United States retained major military bases and significant political influence in the Philippines until the early 1990s.

In Iraq after the First World War discontent among the urban political elites with British failure to honour wartime promises of independence was upstaged by rural tribal revolts in the summer of 1920. The largely Shiite rebels inflicted some early reverses on the British, but reinforements soon poured in from India and elsewhere. Within three months General Haldane's army of over 100,000 British and Indian troops had broken the back of the revolt. Nevertheless the outbreak forced the British to achieve an early political settlement with the largely Sunni Iraqi elites, installing a national government under King Feisal. Officially Iraq was not a British colony, but a mandated territory the British ruled under the authority of the League of Nations and it was to move rapidly to independence. This was granted in 1932, but the British retained important military bases in Iraq and much political influence in the country. During the Second World War Britain invaded Iraq to remove a pro-Axis government in 1941, and British influence in the country did not finally end until the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958.

So will these historical Filipino and Iraqi scenarios be repeated in Iraq? An initial insurgency is defeated; a local government is put together and eventually granted independence; and the intervening power retains military bases and political influence in the country that may last for decades. Such developments do not seem impossible in current Iraqi conditions, but one must not endow historical comparisons with an air of inevitability. The present insurgency in Iraq has its own unique features which may lead to a different outcome.

Both the ealier revolts took place in a time when direct military interventions by major powers in the affairs of smaller states were still widely considered acceptable. The Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003 was crticised by countries large and small around the globe, leaving the question of its legitimacy still open to intense debate. The earlier Filipino and Iraqi rebels had little or no support from outside their own countries, nor did their struggles attract much attention in the international media of their period. Iraqi insurgents today receive much aid from abroad and their activities attract daily attention in media around the world.

The novel features of the new insurgency may require a more sophisticated strategy to defeat them, but valuable lessons in quelling rebellions can still be gleaned from the earlier revolts. The American army of the early twentieth century combined anti-guerrilla operations with successful efforts to improve living conditions among the Filipino population. More than four years after the invasion of Iraq, much of its population still endures a lower standard of living than under Saddam Hussein, while millions have simply fled the country. Establishing security and improving the lot of the population should go hand in hand.

The British suppressed the 1920 Iraq revolt comparatively quickly with a massive use of force, but they knew that an immediate political settlement was needed to prevent further outbreaks. The present 'surge' operations are aimed at stabilising the security situation so that the Iraqi government can win over the Sunni minority with political concessions. In this way the insurgency may be ended. Unfortunately, whatever the military successes of the reinforced US forces, the present Shiite government appears unwilling to make the concessions needed to bring the Sunnis into the Iraqi political process.

History can show us parallels to current events, but it cannot predict future outcomes. If and when the current insurgency in Iraq is defeated, future political developments in that country may well mirror those which followed the defeat of the Filipino rebels and the 1920 Iraqi insurgents, but such developments cannot be taken for granted.

Wars: Long and Longer

Nearly eighteen months have now passed since the Bush administration sought to re-brand its 'global war on terror' as 'the long war'. In February 2006 the US Department of Defense's Quadrennial Defense Review Report included a section on 'Fighting The Long War'. Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defense, sought to present the war on terrorism as 'a generational conflict akin to the Cold War', which lasted for forty-six years (1945-1991).

Mr. Rumsfeld was sacrificed later in 2006 by President Bush as the scapegoat for American failure to make significant progress in the Iraq war, but the wider war against terrorism goes on and the US authorities continue to present it as a struggle that will last for decades.

The international media have never really taken to the new brand name, still preferring 'war on terror' to 'the long war'. In any case, in the context of struggles between the Christian West and the Islamic world, the latter title is already taken. The conflict between the Austrian Habsburgs and the Ottoman Turkish sultan between 1593 and 1606 in the Croatian and Hungarian borderlands is known to historians as the Long War. Yet this largely indecisive thirteen year struggle scarcely deserves such a title when compared with other Christian-Muslim conflicts over the centuries.

Undoubtedly the longest such conflict was the 800 year struggle between the Byzantine Empire and its Muslim ebemies. It began with the Arab invasions in the seventh century and ended in 1453 when the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II stormed Constantinople and killed the last Byzantine emperor. Only a little shorter in duration was the 'Reconquista', the Christian struggle to liberate Spain and Portugal from their Muslim conquerors. Beginning in the rugged mountains of north-western Spain around 720, the conflict did not end until Ferdinand and Isabella, the 'Catholic Monarchs', accepted the surrender of the Muslims of Granada in 1492.

The most famous Christian-Muslim conflict, the Crusades, and the related struggles of the Christian states set up in the Holy Land, barely encompassed two centuiries, ending with the fall of Acre in 1291. In more recent times, the wars between the rising Orthodox Christian empire of Russia and the declining Muslim empire of the Ottoman Turks lasted from the mid-seventeenth century to the early twentieth century. The Russians appeared to triumph, but the empires of both the tsar and the sultan were brought down by their participation in the First World War.

It might be objected that these centuries-long struggles were not continuous, with long periods of truce or declared peace separating outbreaks of hostilities, but the same could be said of the most famous numerically designated wars. The medieval Hundred Years War between England and France was not a continuous struggle, nor was the Eighty Years War in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries when the Dutch successfully struggled to break free from Spanish imperial rule. Similarly the Thirty Years War, the bloody climax of Catholic-Protestant enmity in Europe, is divided into distinct phases, with some periods of peace.

To designate a war that has only been in progress since September 2001 as 'long' seems a little presumptuous when judged against earlier conflicts. In any case most wars receive their enduring historical names long after the event. The only thing that is certain about the presnt conflict is that its end is still not in sight.

US Bases in Iraq: Bastions of Strength or Hostages to Fortune?

As the US-led 'surge' operations reach full strength in Iraq, some American military planners continue to look for a successful outcome, whatever the doubts of politicians and public opinion at home.

Their scenario is that a US-approved Iraqi government holds the country together; violence is reduced to a low level; and Iraqi forces take over internal security duties so that US forces can withdraw to their own bases within the country. Iraq will become the new South Korea. A US garrison will safeguard the country from outside attack, while local resentment at its continued presence is kept to a minimum.

The current base strategy seems likely to involve a minimum of 30-40,000 US military personnel remaining in Iraq indefinitely. They would be located in four or five major bases, with Balad, al-Asad, Tallil and Taji the most likely sites, plus a further base in the north of the country.

Iraqi Kurdistan might seem the ideal place for the northern base, given that it is the only part of Iraq in which Americans enjoy widespread popular support. However, putting a US base there might be seen as implying support for the semi-independent Kurdistan Regional Government, which would anger neighbouring countries such as Turkey.

The overall US headquarters in Iraq would most likely be established in the vast new American embassy in the Green Zone of Baghdad. Other US headquarters in the region, such as the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain and CENTCOM in Qatar, might also be moved to Baghdad.

From such a network of bases US forces could support Iraqi internal security operations; defend the country from external attack, e.g. by Iran; and launch power projection missions to deal with other trouble spots in the wider Middle East region.

Such is the strategy, but it is nothing new. Britain, the last imperial power in the area, tried a similar base strategy in both Iraq and Egypt, but in neither case could it be considered a success.

In 1932 Britain granted independence to Iraq, but maintained a military presence in the country at the Royal Air Force bases of Habbaniyah and Shaibah. Aircraft from there continued to assist Iraqi forces in internal security operations and stood ready for deployment to other parts of the Middle East.

However, when a major military crisis finally arose, the RAF bases in Iraq turned into liabilities rather than assets. In 1941 the pro-fascist Rashid Ali government came to power in Iraq, besieged Habbaniyah, and threatened Shaibah. The bases were only saved when British forces from India and Transjordan invaded Iraq and occupied the country.

Similarly, by the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian treaty, Britain agreed to withdraw its forces in Egypt back to a military base along the Suez Canal. The Second World War delayed this redeployment until 1946, but the new Suez Canal Zone was to prove no bastion of strength for the British.

With the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, the Suez Canal Zone ceased to be of such vital importance for British imperial communications. Instead the Suez Canal Zone became the headquarters for all British forces in the Middle East. With airfields, barracks, workshops, and storehouses, it was a major military base, but its vulnerability was soon revealed.

After its humiliating defeat by Israel in 1948-9, the Egyptian government sought to strengthen its Arab nationalist credentials by tacitly supporting guerrilla attacks on British forces in the Suez Canal Zone. Britain was forced to send thousands of extra troops to defend the base, but clashes continued at the start of the 1950s.

King Farouk's government denounced the 1936 treaty in 1951, but the British refused to give up their base, despite the high cost of holding on to it. Egyptian army officers, led by Colonel Nasser, seized power in Cairo in 1952, and attacks on the British base declined as negotiations took place. Finally the British reached agreement with Nasser in 1954 to give up their base. The last British troops left the Suez Canal Zone in the summer of 1956, only to return for a short period later in the year during the ill-starred Angl0-French-Israeli attack on Egypt.

The British had hoped their 'withdraw to bases' strategy would allow them to keep a presence in the Middle East and be ready for military intervention in the region. In fact such bases only turned out to be expensive burdens that did little to enhance British power in the area and provoked continued local hostility.

It seems unlikely that a similar base strategy by the Americans in Iraq would lead to a happier outcome. US bases in Iraq would not be strong points from which to project power into the wider Middle East region, but would instead become hostages to fortune, potentially beleagured outposts in still hostile territory.