We are now watching the final outcome of the post WWI settlement, when France and Britain divided the spoils of the defeated Ottoman Empire. They drew lines on a map and created two counties, one a republic, Syria, and one a monarchy, Iraq. The boundaries of these countries, within which some of the world’s oldest cities had stood from deep into Biblical times, took no account of tribe, ethnicity, religion or sub group, all of which became separated from one culture and joined to another without any say in the matter. We know from Ireland just how tense these divides can become and how toxic are the relationships which fester and multiply. Only strong leadership of an authoritarian stamp will keep the lid on the mix, which is why both Iraq and Syria became authoritarian dictatorships.
The assumption by the West that these could readily be replaced by pluralist democracy, which ignored the history and the fault lines, has been proved to be spectacularly flawed, at terrible human cost. These two countries are now fractured beyond repair and one way or another will divide together into new enclaves of common ethnic origin. Not until that happens will there be any lasting peace, but how long it will take and at what human cost is impossible to foretell. All we know is the cost in human suffering is already beyond appalling and will get worse, and it should never have happened.