Iraq Needs Unity to Deal with Syria Crisis
As foreign military intervention in Syria grows more imminent, the Iraqi authorities would do well to set aside their internal differences and take the necessary precautions should its neighbor’s conflict spill over onto its territory.
The Syrian crisis has reached a critical point, from the use of chemical weapons as a tool in the internal war, to threats that the United States and Europe will take punitive measures against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, to speculations, analysis and unbalanced scenarios of the reactions that will arise from these dangerous developments.
In Iraq, the concerns and speculations seem to be more severe than in any other place. There are talks that the border between the two countries — which extends nearly 600 km (373 miles) — will become an open crossing for Sunni extremist armed groups, and that battlefields will span across the border to enable al-Qaeda to escalate its operations.
Alongside all of this talk, the media have reported that armed Shiite groups from Iraq continue to flow into Syria to support the Assad regime. This is while a group calling itself Al-Nujaba'a threatened on Aug. 30 to attack US interests in Iraq and the region if the United States carries out any attacks on Syrian targets.
This exchange of threats — which risk setting the Iraqi arena ablaze, leading the country back to a civil war, or even attacking US interests — are neither new to Iraq nor the region in general. Yet, their danger lies in the emergence of a clear Iraqi defect in two parts.
