Iraq, Syria, and Libya No Longer Exist

It should not come as a surprise then that certain places we think of as countries at the moment no longer exist. In the media we refer to places like Syria, Iraq and Libya as “failed states”. They are no such thing. They are no states at all. Any more than they are countries. In Iraq there is one, barely functional state: the Shi’a dominated state of Baghdad and Basra regions. Then then there is the feudal military force of ISIS who is attempting to establish a different state in the Sunni north-west. And then there is Kurdish country in the north which has its own proto-state structure in this region, but also in Kurdish dominated areas in Syria, Turkey and Iran. Upon the founding of the Kingdom or Iraq, King Faisal I noted that “there is no Iraqi people inside Iraq. There are only diverse groups with no national sentiments.” Iraq was never a country. And it is no longer a state either.