Iraq falls apart

Recent gains by ISIL (or IS=Islamic State) have led to the de facto partitioning of Iraq. IS has made stunning headway in Sunni areas. The ease and rapidity of its gains mirror rejection of the central government. Collaborators essentially turned over Mosul and other cities to the insurgents. Maliki's forces were worse than pathetic. Fleeing without a fight, they abandoned vast quantities of arms to their enemies. Government troops are attempting to retake areas lost to IS, starting with Tikrit, but a recent setback suggests they won't succeed. Inasmuch as the shiites might at least hold Baghdad, and other areas, the splitting of Iraq along sectarian lines could be lasting.
Taking advantage of government weakness, Kurdish forces have taken Kirkuk, and seek to establish an independent state of their own. For all practical purposes, the once united Iraq of Saddam has given way to three separate regions, one controlled by an offshoot of al-Qaida.
As many Americans have at last realized, the US crusade in Iraq was a terrible mistake. As I tried to tell people before the 2003 invasion, democratizing Iraq was futile. To stay together, it needs someone like Saddam. The dismal morale of US equipped and trained forces in the face of indigenous movements attests to the degree to which American ideas were out of their depth.
It's hard to see how this present mess will be resolved. Many Shiites are now clamoring for Maliki to go, so a new leadership can induce the sunnis to rejoin Iraq. But it may be too late. With all its new recruits, hardware and cash, IS won't just go away. One possibility is a permanent breakup, with IS establishing its own state while the shiite areas come under Iranian control. But if Maliki stays, angering those who want him out (or if there is a power struggle among his allies following his ouster) the shiites may be weakened by internal discord. Under such circumstances, IS might ultimately take all of Iraq. Perhaps the leader of IS, Baghdadi, will be the new Saddam Iraq needs. IS might then overrun Syria, erasing the old Sykes-Picot boundary to forge a regional superpower. But that seems highly unlikely given all the efforts by the international community to contain or beat IS.