Robin Mills: Few clean lines in drawing Iraq’s future | The National

Robin Mills: Few clean lines in drawing Iraq’s future | The National:



"Tidy lines on a map are comforting. But they conceal the reality of communities separated, of towns, families and people who don’t fit into neat sectarian or ethnic identities. And they raise the messy problem of vital economic assets – pipelines, rivers, oilfields – cut in two.



We have seen this problem in the patchwork of post-Soviet states in Central Asia, in the troubled divorce of Sudan and South Sudan, and now it may be repeated in Iraq. From the infinity of possibilities, what do three broad scenarios mean for the future of the country’s oil industry?



The scenario of revival would involve a unity government in Baghdad, under some acceptable candidate – needing domestic support as well as nods from both the US and Iran. This government would expel the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and regain shaky control of northern Iraq. But unless this is combined with a resolution to the Syrian civil war, the north is likely to remain a violent and chaotic place."



'via Blog this'