The Death of the State and the Triumph of Tribalism

Over the last couple months, we all have observed the escalating conflict in Iraq with growing concern as to what it means for both the region and the world at large.  In one sense, this ‘civil war’ in Iraq (if we dare call it such) is nothing more than an internecine conflict between different ethnic factions who hold to competing religious and political goals.  Even the bloody massacres perpetrated by ISIS, as horrific as they are, are not in themselves truly historically significant (I hate to break it to you, but there as always been a small, but militant faction of Islam that has enjoyed killing people.  Not to sound overly trite in our age of the “touchy feely” syndrome, but for that minority of Muslims, such a practice is the European equivalent of going to the pub on Saturday night before mass the next morning.)  But in contemplating the historical context of both the presence of ISIS in Iraq, and its consequence-a growing civil war, I was struck with the following observation:  What is happening in Iraq is an excellent example of an observation I made several months ago on this blog regarding the future of the modern geo-political state as we knew it and defined it in the 20th century.

In my previous post, Why 21st Century Politics is killing Socialism, I wrote the following observation regarding our postmodern world:

My point is that this paradigm shift in the western world, the death of the Modern, and the rise of the Post-modern, is the simple explanation why Socialism and its Centralized State are dying and being replaced with a new geo-economic and political theory. What will be the dominant political and economic theory of the twenty-first century? A modified form of Localism or Libertarianism. But lest those on the political right get overly excited about this observation, this embrace of Localism is not because mankind has suddenly experienced an awakening to the value of individual liberty. No, for the most part, the world is still rushing full speed back to authoritarianism. But for the Post-modern who views reality as splintering apart into a trillion little pieces, entirely disconnected to each other, the only sensible political theory is a form of anarcho-Libertarianism which could be stated more succinctly this way:

Let every man, woman, child or whatever gender you prefer to describe as do what is right in their own eyes.

Now, I can already hear the questions being posed. What does the death of socialism and the centralized state along with the rise of Postmodern thought have to do with a centuries’ old religious conflict among Muslims?  After all, Muslims aren’t exactly know for being champions of the centralized state or Modernism or Post-modern thinking.  Allow me to make two observations regarding why I state that the current conflict in Iraq is a reflection of the death of the Modern State and the rise of the Postmodern tribal mentality.

First, we must remember that the “MODERN STATE” of Iraq was an artificial creation of the Western powers after World War I.  The nation-state we call “Iraq” did not actually come into existence until 1919 with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. Prior to that time, ‘Iraq’ was part of the Ottoman Empire and was ruled by the Turks from the mid-1400’s.  But with the defeat of the Central Powers, the victorious Allies, “afflicted and troubled in conscience” by the “sin of empire,” and eager to make the world “safe for Democracy”, determined that the Ottoman Empire needed broken up along with the German and Austro-Hungarian conglomerates.  But rather than break up the Ottoman Empire according to ethnic or tribal divisions, the Allied powers, ever mindful that making the world ‘safe for democracy’ meant preserving the oil fields of the Middle East for British and French industrial power, arbitrarily drew boundary lines in such a way as to preserve the integrity of the oil fields with no respect for centuries old tribal boundaries or ethnic and religious traditions.  This is how the modern state of Iraq came into existence.

But as the Modern ideals are dying (or in some cases, already dead), the people of the world will naturally revert back to what they knew for generations before the “modern hiccup” spit forth in the 20th century.  I would be so bold as to predict that before the 21st century ends, the ‘modern’ state of Iraq will cease to exist.  But that observation is secondary to my real point which is this: Iraq is dying because it lost it’s one point of national identity in 2003-the toppling of Saddam Hussein by the American invaders. And so it’s people are reverting back to their former loyalties: Shiites, Sunni or Kurd which are the three main ethno-religious groups in Iraq.  Localism killing the state.

But this fact pales in significance when compared to my second observation, the rise and spread of ISIS through the Middle East.  The presence of ISIS is Iraq is even more significant that then the problems in Iraq or Syria because their presence signals the rise of Islamic dominance once again in the Middle East.  I do not think that ISIS itself will last long.  Their goals and aims are far too radical, costly and disconcerting to both the Modern and Postmodern ways of thinking.  ISIS will die quickly, and if I had to make projection, Iraq will continue to plunge into worse chaos in the next several years unless another strong man comes to forefront. The question is, who will that strong man be? The United States? Another Iraqi nationalist like Saddam? Another foreign power from the East? Or a new Islamic leader who is both militant in his beliefs and can build a strong man coalition that can unite Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, and perhaps even other Arabs in a broad Islamic coalition?

That is the real question regarding the future of Iraq as well as our new postmodern world.