Tom:

Of course it is.

I have the maps and history.

Iraq is becoming what it was in the past. City-states, shifting spheres with competing influences from Turkey, Iran, and the Kurds straddling each to maintain hegemony in their sectors.

The Sunni speaker is from Mosul, while the other Sunni provinces (created and/or substantially recarved by Saddam, give way to the old system similar to the Ottoman administrative structure.

Baghdad, Basra, Mosul and the Kurdish areas. Each with their own districts (10 total districts). Each district (and even the provinces themselves) had its own hierarchy and line of organization, which changed from time to time.

Varying degrees of autonomy, and varying degrees of power within shifting provinces, districts and sub-districts. The Ottomans changed the structure about every 10 years or so to address shifting influences. Post-Ottoman Iraq only did it every few decades or so.

Sammara was under Baghdad, as was Tikrit, although influences played back and forth at the margins between Mosul and Baghdad regions.

The central government's role, even back to Ottoman days, was limited, except for intermittent "inspirations" of administrative re-organization and investment (reopen the canals, built the Baghdad Railway to Berlin to bypass the British P&O steamer monopoly on trade.

Always, always, the country was a boundary line between Iran and the West, and the lines shifted, so the residents had to play along.

What's new here?

Ultimately, Iraqis will continue to sift and resift this sand to suit any combination of imperatives, as they emerge and change.

Any competent review of the administrative histories of these areas would understand immediately that our notions of stable internal political administration through clearly defined provincial structures of constant and equal status is just foolishness.

Ottoman systems were, at the provincial and sub-provincial levels, managed and directed by a complex and sophisticated system of local "notables" and ministerial "technocrats" who created various checks and balances of their own dimensions for every major initiative.

Iraq must emerge, evolve in its own ways, and they will not look like what the US structured.

Same lessons not learned in Afghanistan, with a similar, but unique, administrative history. You can't administer these places in the same way as Cedar Rapids, Iowa. They are not the same thing, and our misguided efforts will continue to be unravelled.

That unravelling our "thing," has nothing to do with the fact that they will, in their own ways and with their own processes, find their way into the future.

Stephen Donnelly
Former Senior Urban Planning Advisor, Iraq Reconstruction

One of the more insightful and realistic responses I have ever read on FP concerning the evolution of post-Saddam Iraq. Excellent!

1. Wings' Administrative Map is incorrect as to provincial boundaries.

2. Salah ad Din's power and existence as a province independent of Bahgdad was solely a Saddam thing. No Saddam, no juice. Down the road, Tikrit and its surrounding sphere will, in all likelihood, return to its old status as a district of Baghdad. Maliki is actually not doing anything except, in effect, recognizing the pre-Saddam status (a district, even if the bumper sticker says otherwise).

3. Salah ad Din might look like it is being controlled by political parties, but it is not, and never was. The influence and control is elsewhere (notables). The question for Maliki, as with old time Ottoman appointments, is whether his appointee (or another substitute) can maintain control by support from the people of that district (and the notables).

4. Functional re-mapping would create, more or less, the same hierarchies, and spheres of influence in the south, too. If true, there is substantial historical precedent for it. Sounds like the old Shia alignment that was always in place back to the 1600s.

5. The US was so fixated on creating new National Symbols (Constitutions, Stock Market regulations) that it neglected the fact that much of the internal conflicts were embedded in the internal structures created during Saddam times. Rolling those back, and helping people to re-organize, would have been easier than trying to change them once again. Maliki's path, and the emerging realignments are solidly anchored in precedent.

If the US continues to comply with the 2008 Withdrawal/SOFA agreement, we'll leave Iraq with the smallest air force of any country in the ME. I've seen no reportage of offensive or close support combat by the IA, or even UAV surveillance ops. Is the air over Iraq still our exclusive AO?

If the IA isn't flying daily ops in Jan 2011, it's unlikely that Maliki's military will have the operational air capability to secure even the capital belt by the end of the year, or even next year. If I can see this now, an airborne commander like Petraeus had it mapped years ago.

I'd love to see some expert commentary here on the Mosul/Balad/Baghdad/H3 airport handover plans. Hundreds of helos, transports, strike jets, thousands of pilots, tens of thousands of aviation support personnel can't be pulled out of a hat, when our flags come down. Showing us the door doesn't grant Maliki instant lethal force sovereignty over his own airspace and frontiers.

Iraq's Defense Ministry said that their air force wont be ready until 2016 at the earliest.

The Air Force has 115 planes most of which are trainers and transports, along with 19 surveillance and 3 ground attack planes. They also have some Huey's, some larger Russian transport copters, and just bought 22 Mi-17 attack copters. They have no jets.

The U.S. also donated a radar system for northern Iraq, and are suppose to give one for southern part as well, but Iraq needs two more for central and western Iraq. There are no missile defenses.

Baghdad is currently in the process of buying F-16s from the U.S. Those probably won't arrive until the middle of this year.

Basically the U.S. is Iraq's air defense.

looks for sure this is one of the deepest and most realistic responses I've read about the evolution of post-Saddam Iraq. very good! I really liked it!
lingerie
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