Conditions for the possible renaissance of Sunni Arabs

summary

There is no possible renaissance of Sunni Arabs in Iraq except with a rising mind that they have lost and have been defeated in the past fourteen years by a prevailing mentality that time has cut its way to tomorrow.

The international community has witnessed an unprecedented change in the balance of power since the end of the Cold War, the impact of which has been reflected in favor of a new secular federal model of government that is steadily evolving in Iraq from 1991 to 2017 under an international order that formed three international alliances to support it from 1991.

The model of the new Iraq has stood today at the gates of transition to phase 3 after 2017 on the way to its success after the stages of 1991-2003 and 2003-2017.The stage of 2017 in its strategic transformation and its positive impact on Sunni Arabs may resemble the stage of 1991 in its transformation and its positive impact on the Kurds.

In the 2003-2017 period, Sunni Arabs entered a difficult labor that in the chaos of its historical interval was hampered by multiple factors and competing models. The collision was caused by a historic defeat for Sunni Arabs because of their mentality and dominant system.

The mentalities and systems of the Sunni Arabs that caused their defeat are centralized, authoritarian, ideological, unscientific mentalities and systems that identify the religious with the political, making them rebellious, believing in the conspiracy, living in the past, and wanting to dominate reality, so they are unable to confront it and resort to violence.

The reason why the Sunni Arab national, religious, social and political mentality is unable to face the reality of another Iraq that they have not spoken of is moving towards a secular federal model of governance launched since 1991 is due to its search for either a central religious model of governance left by events since 1920 or a central secular model that has been abandoned by events since 2003.

This deficit and collision led to the entry of the Arab national and religious mentality into a difficult labor in which the religious, political and social (references) of the Sunni Arabs have historically failed to contain their religious and civil audiences, so the religious public went towards extremism (al-Qaeda and ISIS) and the civilian public turned against both sides.

This difficult historical labor seems to have reversed the prevailing Sunni Arab mentality as it led them towards the birth of an active mentality away from the intellectual and practical tyranny (and terrorism) that has dominated it over time.

The mentalities and systems of Sunni Arabs in this historical labor faced five independent factors and models.The factor of al-Qaeda (and later ISIS) was the first of these factors after the attacks of the eleventh of September.Then the American factor was its occupation, withdrawal or return after the fall of Mosul.Then it was the Kurdish and sectarian factor and then the factor of the constitution and the political process.

How will Sunni Arabs face these five factors that are still active in the Iraqi arena after 2017.The Kurdish factor is heading 27 years later to the referendum on independence.The sectarian factor is still stronger than the state. The United States has returned strongly after the withdrawal and the policies that led to the existence of ISIS and al-Qaeda still exist.

The study concluded that Iraq's next third phase after the liberation of Mosul may resemble the opportunity and challenges of the Kurds after the liberation of Kuwait, as Sunni Arabs need to explicitly acknowledge the defeat of their intellectual and practical system and their political culture and dismantle and synthesize their mentality and system in a new competitive form.

The basis of the competing new Sunni Arab formula is the Sunni Arabs' awareness of the strategic shifts in the new international order led by the United States, whose core role in their country they have been living face to face since 1991.

And that this realization turns into a will that is embodied intellectually and practically by not clashing with international reality first. Second, to link the Arabs' national and religious identity to the land and not to any cross-border intellectual, national or religious factor, this is considered terrorism.

And thirdly in accepting the secular federal model and allying with the international system in fighting transnational factors represented by ISIS or militias, and fourth in insisting on the implementation of the constitution and not allowing Baghdad to bypass it and them in the model of the Kurdistan Region as well.

The path of Sunni Arabs after 2017 will not be furnished with flowers even if they admit defeat and reshape their wife and system.But acknowledging defeat and reshaping the mentality and system will move them from being an incapable player to compete in Iraq's turbulent political arena.

Chapter One

Critique of the Prevailing Sunni Arab Mentality

After 2003, Sunni Arabs were divided into opponents and participants(2) in the way of dealing with the 2003 Iraq model.Opponents and participants were then divided into sections, some of which struggled with each other with the intention of dominating in the shadow of a local international-regional conflict without borders over the model of governance of Iraq in 2003.3

The conflict between Sunni Arabs and each other over the model of governance since 2003 is based on a dominant centralized Arab mentality that has not changed since they left the model of good governance in two rows to a model of central, monarchical and religious rule absolute from Bani Umayyya, Abbas and Othman through a central secular model of governance under the nation-state system after 1920 to 2003 (4).

While the concept of the state changed from central religious to central secular after 1920, and changed from central secular to chaos after the fall of Saddam's regime with the cornerstone of a federal secular model in Kurdistan, the Arab religious and nationalist mentality has been living in the past and looking for models that have been overtaken by events.

Therefore, the essence of the dominant Sunni Arab mind is a past mind that has been shaped over time by the conflicts of Arab divisions with each other. It is the history of "differences" and the history of "classes", as Muhammad Abed al-Jabri says in his book "Critique of the Arab Mind", that is, it is a history of difference, disagreement and conflict, not a history of dialogue and schools of constructive opinion.5

On this basis, Sunni Arabs were divided after 2003 into Sunni opposition blocs and participating Sunni classes.The Sunni classes participating from the Sunni province of Anbar in the 2014 parliamentary elections split into 25 political blocs to compete for 9 parliamentary seats.

This is proof that the mentality of dominating the other Sunni side and not allying with it is at the top of the agenda of every Arab political, religious or social group, as al-Jabri says in the critique of the Arab mind.6

This is happening at a time when Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state, has explicitly pointed out, "There is a new strategic situation in the Middle East, which is that America has ended one of the two Baath parties in the region and only one party remains, the Syrian Baath."[7]

It is a sign that is not without meaning and can be understood that whoever can eliminate the Baath of Iraq can also eliminate the other Ba'ath.

This means that the central Arab religious or nationalist model is no longer valid or capable of confrontation under international developments and circumstances that are moving towards a secular, federal, geographical model that was launched in Iraq after 1991 in the Kurdistan Region.

The events of 11-9-2001 and the declaration of the global war on terrorism and the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan also opened the door to a world different from what preceded it.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell argued that "the United States will take it upon itself to change the map of the Middle East over the next ten years and that the war on Iraq is the key to bringing about political changes in the Middle East."[8]

While the rule says that "judging something is a branch of its perception",9 the perception of the State and the model of governance after 2003 have differed and so their provisions have differed.

The attempt to overthrow the rules of the caliphate that nests in the Arab religious mind or the provisions of the Baath Party's national leadership in the Arab nationalist mind has become a transnational terrorism that must be combated.10 After the earthquake of 11-9-2001 and the occupation of 2003.

If the Arab mind's rejection of the opportunities of the 2003 Iraq model of governance caused the defeat of Sunni Arabs in the past fourteen years, how will Sunni Arabs face the opportunities and challenges of Iraq 2017 with the same mentality?

Chapter Two

The reality of the Arabs of the year from 2003 to 2017

In preparation for the day after ISIS, the Kurdistan Region is preparing to vote on independence next September,11 while the intellectual and practical Sunni Arab diaspora has caused no clear vision to the diaspora of their symbols, audiences and provinces.

One sign of the Sunni Arabs' loss of vision is that the al-Qaeda factor in whose hands the Sunni Arab provinces fell after the Samarra bombings in 2006 failed the experience of Sunni Arab resistance to the political process (12) and forced it to use the US military to fight it in 2007.Then the ISIS factor failed the Sunni Arab movement in 2012 and their provinces fell again to ISIS.13

One of the signs of the loss of vision is that the sectarian factor has failed all the experiences of political participation of Sunni Arabs (14), starting with the consensus of 2006-2010 and Iraqiya 2010-2014 and ending with the Union of Forces 2014.

It is absurd that the Sunni Arabs participating in Atun continue a fourth political experiment after the consensus, Iraqiya and the union of forces under the sectarian factor or in Atun to resist the political process under the factor of al-Qaeda and Daesh, which has placed some Sunni Arab parties in the category of terrorism.15

Without a paradigm shift and a qualitative process that makes a difference in the reality of Sunni Arabs, the sectarian factor may repeat a fourth failed experiment after the union of forces and that ISIS or al-Qaeda may repeat a third experience of ISIS after al-Qaeda and ISIS.

The mental shift that makes a difference in the reality of Sunni Arabs is in a new Arab-Sunni formula that reshapes the mentality and system of tired Sunni Arabs in a way that enables Sunni Arabs to form a political body that holds the ground after Daesh, lifts the hand of the Popular Mobilization Forces and the hand of al-Qaeda and ISIS from it and achieves stability.

Without this formula, relying on reform that could take place in Baghdad that would integrate Sunni Arabs into the political process before taking over or for parliamentary elections that could take place in 2018, or to think of a cross-sectarian bloc without concrete international guarantees is an illusion (16).

The problems of Sunni Arabs in terms of extremism, devastation and religious violence in light of the current realities are only a constitutional local governance formula that can help prevent the emergence of ISIS and provide an opportunity for a competing Arab-Sunni intellectual formula and federal process.

The more problematic a society is, the more extreme it is in its religiosity, and solving the problem of religious extremism requires solving society's problems.18 The solution to society's problems lies in political reform leading to religious reform, not the other way around.

Political reform means lifting them out of the field of the problems of tyranny, terrorism and extremism and including them in a federal model of government that provides them with a door for free participation in the management of State affairs, the control, criticism, accountability and accountability of all authorities, and the right of individuals and groups to say no.19

Chapter Three

Previous studies

Research that talks about the objective reasons for the failure of the experiments of Arabs in general and Sunni Arabs in Iraq in particular is rare. Perhaps this study may fill some of the shortages in this area. The study looked at some studies that diagnosed the dysfunction of the mentality and the Arab system and tried to develop some solutions.

Says. Mr. Wissam Al-Saleh, a master's student of Islamic economics at Sabahattin Zaim University in Istanbul, in an article entitled "Sunni Arabs and the Search for Critical Mass",20 spoke of the fact that the Arab Sunnis are missing the critical mass and are living through a phase of emotional limbo and temporal alienation as a result of the shock left by the occupation.

The shock divided them into two groups, one of which dreams that pre-occupation Iraq will return.The last subservient is looking for short goals and narrow interests.Neither the dreamer has been able to advance his deteriorating reality nor the submissive is able to regain his rights.

Although Wissam al-Kubaisi did not specify the road map for his critical bloc or the nature of this bloc, whether political, religious or social, he said that it is realism that imposes itself at the end of the road if the Sunnis work to form a critical mass from all spectrums and parties of the Sunnis.

The first step in this path is through the meeting of all Sunni tendencies in a critical mass that continues to struggle until the opposite party recognizes the need to lay new foundations for a true and full partnership. This bloc will help them to confront, negotiate and consult with the forces inside and outside on solid ground and from the standpoint of strength and defiance.

In his Critique of Defeat,21 Sadiq Jalal al-Azm discusses the Arabs' ideological perceptions of themselves after the defeat of the Fifth of June, considering their perception of themselves to be a false and unreal consciousness.Perhaps as the jihadist and political Islam groups see themselves today or as the Sunni Arabs see themselves as the result of their defeat from the replacement of Iraq until the liberation of Mosul.

Al-Azm sees in his Critique of Defeat that the causes of Arab backwardness belong to the Arab self and not to the other represented by the West.Al-Azm puts the Arab mentality under anatomy, condemns it to backwardness, and in the spirit of dependence, and that it is a mentality that does not look at itself when mistakes occur, but refers that matter abroad, and that this outside is the cause of problems and disasters, and is clothed by conspiracy theory at the hour of defeat.

Instead of the Arab mentality running into the house of disease and eradicating it, blame the enemy, colonialism, treachery, luck and everything that comes to its mind, thus trivializing itself, saving face, preserving appearances, taking into account feelings and raising morale.

Al-Azm stresses the need to admit defeat and describes the recognition of Arab responsibility for the results of the fifth of June as coming late, formulated in cautious, conservative and reluctant language, not exceeding the level of generalization that does not violate traditional decency or disturb it.

In general, the book has instigated the awakening of the critical spirit, in order to meet the thought of defeat, and to return defeat to its logical rather than imagined causes.

Mustafa Ben Teskeed of Tunisia, in his paper entitled "Religious, Political and the Problem of Freedom",22 goes on to another dilemma that consists of the relationship between the religious and the political in the Arab mentality and system.

The religious must be liberated from the political from the political from the religious in order to liberate with them the Arab (mind) from the two weights and solve the Arab structural dilemma.Ben Mask wants to say that the Arab mentality has gone through a difficult democratic labor in which democracy has been able to qualify the Arab mentality within its system.

His proof of this diagnosis is that the change in the geopolitical map of the universe after the events of the eleventh of September and the occupation of Iraq has exposed this dilemma in the Arab mentality and revealed how it led to that result.

Some movements that want to restore the Islamic political and societal model that transcends history have collided with reality and have become violent and turned into jihadist movements.

The change in the geopolitical map of the universe ensured that some movements of political Islam abandoned their traditional mobilization sayings such as "Islam is the solution" after assuring them that whoever wants to Islamize it no longer accepts to retreat back after being voluntarily and involuntarily saturated with universal modernist values.

Muhammad Abed al-Jabri, in his Critique of the Arab Mind,23 answers the fundamental question of whether it is theoretically possible to reshape the Sunni Arab mind again?The answer to this question is fundamental in dismantling the foundations of the clash of knowledge in Sunni Arab culture, a culture that has caused not only an ideological conflict between the Arab parties from two rows to the present day but also the emergence of an organic relationship, as Muhammad Abed al-Jabri says, between the clash of knowledge and the ideological conflict about the Arabs.

The answer to this question is also essential to build a new relationship between the new mentality and the next practical system of Sunni Arabs away from the ideological conflict in order not to repeat the tragedy of the past fourteen years, especially as Iraq moves from Iraq in 2003 to Iraq in 2017 after Mosul and ISIS.

With great blessings, this question must be answered by Muhammad Abed al-Jabri.He says, "The dominant Arab mind can be changed to another and the Arab mind can be seen as an active mind that shapes the dominant mind in a specific historical period."

This means and speaks to Jabri (new mental principles and rules can be created to replace the old mental rules, and he must create a new dominant mind, or at least develop and renew the old dominant mind, and the mind itself will criticize itself by exposing its foundations and moving its activities with new concepts and foresights, if this mind wants to carry out a social, political or religious renaissance).23

Bringing about a coup d'état in the structure of knowledge is not only possible but necessary for Sunni Arabs to overcome their crisis.David Harvey says we need new mental concepts and a revolution in our thinking.

This depends on the decision of the Sunni Arabs and their pledge to make a radical change in their mental and practical system and that they must choose. The choice of any choice depends on the balance between their mental and practical discipline on what might be possible, Political Discourse Analysis p. 22 (24).

Hence the importance of criticizing the dominant Arab mind religiously, nationally and socially and trying to develop a new formula after the earthquake of 2003 to 2014, which reversed this mentality and opened the door wide to reshape it before rebuilding the undermined provinces.

Renad Mansour, a researcher at the Carnegie Middle East Center whose research focuses on Iraq, Iran, and Kurdish affairs, says in his paper titled "The Sunni Predicament in Iraq",[25] published on March 3, 2016, that the structural Arab-Sunni fragmentation has nothing to do with the Baghdad government.

Mansour added that Iraq's Sunnis do not feel Sunnis, which has made them victims of traps in which they would have fallen either with or without government policies. Mansour says nothing short of a real change in the central government and the crystallization of a unified leadership to represent the Sunni voice could help launch another Sunni awakening.

On the contrary, this group is made up of several political parties (with different ideologies), tribal sheikhs, clerics, and businessmen.The Sunni group is in fact made up of a large number of representatives with very different goals even when they claim to speak on behalf of the same audience.

Mansour inferres that Sunnis are not Sunnis by saying that in the 2014 parliamentary elections, 25 electoral blocs participated in the ballot for 15 seats in Anbar and almost all of these blocs claimed to speak on behalf of the same Sunni grassroots, which represents the majority in the province.

Mansour adds in his research that the blame for the predicament of Sunni Arabs cannot be placed on the central government, as Sunni Arab representatives have adopted strategic choices and fallen into traps that have worsened their already weak position in the new Iraq.

Mansour asserts that many of the leaders who emerged and had the opportunity to represent the Iraqi Sunni community after 2003 and were not punished for the de-Baathification law were not keen on participation, which is an essential part of representation.

Mansour goes on to describe the Sunni mentality: "Not only did Sunnis lack a clear leadership structure, but more importantly they lacked the sectarian identity necessary for successful political mobilization in Iraq after 2003," he said, rejecting the state of new components, rejecting federalism and many refusing to use the word "Sunnis" or "component" publicly.

Although since the occupation of Mosul, Iraqi Sunni leaders have made numerous efforts to reunite various Sunni political leaders with a view to finding common ground and forming a united front, and have held conferences in Baghdad, Erbil, Amman, Doha, Beirut and elsewhere in the region, differences continue to hamper the establishment of a united front.

At a conference in Baghdad, the most striking thing was that a disagreement prompted participants to throw chairs. Besides the issue of unity, Sunnis lack political parties and a serious institutional mechanism to achieve broader representation.

During each election cycle, new parties and coalitions come out claiming to speak on behalf of Sunnis, but lack the institutional memory or legacy needed to move forward. Mansour concludes his research by saying that any hope for a Sunni return to engagement, or for a second Sunni awakening, depends on the unification of these parties, closer to the unity of the Iraqiya bloc in 2010.

Omar al-Nadawi, an Iraq analyst at The Washington Institute based in Washington, D.C., says in his paper entitled "The State of the Sunni Conflict in Iraq",26 that Sunni Arabs lack religious and political authority and the multiplicity of Philippine sponsors unlike Shiites, that there are fewer opportunities for fragmented Sunni Arab leaders to present a unified vision of their future role and goals in Mosul, and in Iraq as a whole, and that it is time to prioritize issues related to governance and political settlement for the post-ISIS period.

Al-Nadawi adds that history testifies that Sunni Arabs lack a central religious authority that can play the same role as Najaf among Shia Muslims.

Al-Nadawi asserts that Sunnis differ from their Shia counterparts also by the multiplicity of regional patrons who provide them with financial and political support, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Qatar.

It is necessary to complete the involvement of Sunni Arab leaders and communities in the political process in order to bring long-term stability and to prevent extremist movements from resurging.

While civil society participation helps promote reconciliation at the local level, Sunni reconciliation at the national level requires a top-to-bottom approach.

The U.S. prime minister may play a crucial role in motivating Sunnis to take a coherent stance, by engaging Sunni states that have influence over Iraq's Sunni Arabs in a multilateral dialogue aimed at understanding their respective agendas and forming a unified vision with realistic goals.

For the former, they need consensus on whether one of the following options will achieve their autonomy and governance aspirations: apply the provisions in force that require decentralization and delegation of power, acquire the status of a federal region for each of their provinces separately, or form a Sunni federal region that includes all Sunni-majority governorates.

These options show the differences between the pursuit of administrative decentralization enshrined in the Constitution and the rejection of the post-2003 order and the resort to de facto partition.

Sunnis must also agree on whether to exert the necessary pressure to implement the National Guard project, which is facing a deadlock, to play an active role in maintaining the security of their provinces, or else they will have to support conscription as a means of ensuring relative participation in the armed forces.

Even if Sunni Arabs present a unified program to negotiate with Abadi's government, they still have to deal with opposition from Shia hardliners and Iran to power-sharing.

The next challenge is to address the double standards that Iran and its Sunni adversaries follow in the regional conflict. Iran wants Iraq's Shia majority to dominate the country and has no intention of giving any significant role to the Sunni minority.

Perhaps the only solution is to try to get the Saudis, Turks, and Iranians to look at the region from the perspective of the outcome of profits and losses, which is based on the theory that any expected loss in one region may be compensated for by a win in another. The process of rearranging interests, though not perfect, may provide a better chance of breaking the current impasse and of reaching a more balanced balance of power in the region.

The Center for the Study of War in Washington, in a report written by Emily Ananostos, Jessica Louis McVette, Jennifer Cavarella, and Alexandra Gotoski entitled "The Sunni Revolution in Iraq and the Hero of the New Year",27 points to the dilemma of Sunni political division in light of the policies of government marginalization that led to a peaceful movement in 2013 and that the continuation of these policies will be the US alliance will face a Sunni insurgency coming after Mosul.

Because of former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's policies, which included sectarian measures that marginalized Sunni politicians and strengthened his control over the Iraqi army at a time when U.S. forces withdrew from the country, U.S. efforts and its allies to try to integrate Sunni Arabs into the Iraqi political process failed in 2008 and sparked a year-long peaceful protest movement in Sunni areas after the arrest of protections from moderate Sunni Finance Minister Rafi al-Issawi in December 2012.

Hence, the U.S.-led process and its allies have yet to seek to resolve the political problems that led to the peaceful political movement that Sunni areas witnessed in 2012-2013.The Sunnis of Iraq liberated from ISIS control will not necessarily be integrated into the government, and the coalition's victory will open the door to the emergence of new actors in the Sunni arena who will necessarily be anti-governmental.

The internal Sunni conflict, which Nouri al-Maliki helped ignite, led to the disintegration of the Sunni political alliance called the Iraqi List, which in turn hampered the process of building a Sunni political base, making it impossible to redirect Sunni anger away from the armed insurgency.

Thus, previous studies have shown that the reason for the defeat of Sunni Arabs in the face of the events of the new Iraq is due to the dominance of central mentalities and systems that are ideological and unscientific, where the religious and the political identify and make them insurgents who believe in the conspiracy and live in the past and want to dominate reality and if faced with it unable to harmonize with it and turned to violence.

If added to this possibility, Baghdad will continue its policies of marginalization and exclusion that are contrary to the constitution, another ISIS or base will nest in their arena and Iraq remains an arena of instability.

Therefore, it is necessary to establish new mental principles and rules that replace the old mental rules of Sunni Arabs or at least develop and renew the dominant mind to criticize itself by exposing its foundations and moving its activities with new concepts and foresights if this mind wants to carry out a social, political or religious renaissance for the Arab years in the next stage.

Chapter IV

Theoretical framework of research

The importance of research

The importance of the research lies in the fact that it comes after 14 years of experience of historical failure of Sunni Arabs mainly due to structural dilemmas in the mentality and system of Sunni Arabs that have failed to accommodate enormous regional and international transformations since 1991.

The research is all the more important that it is trying to explore solutions to the post-Mosul phase in front of Sunni Arabs as they stand in front of the possibilities of a new phase after Mosul that may push them to the forefront after an absence or throw them into a Sunni-Sunni armed conflict.

Research Objectives

The objectives of the research are first to answer its questions and test the validity of its hypothesis that there have been strategic shifts that have taken place in Iraq in the last 27 years that Sunni Arabs have not grasped because of their mentality and central systems and because of the chaos of the relationship between religion and the state they have.

Second, to convince Sunni Arabs of this hypothesis after testing its validity and the need to recognize the failure of their central systems and mentalities, accept the federal model, sort out the relationship between religion and the state and harmony with the international compass in the coming years.

Research Methodology

The study took the realistic approach of international relations, which is a curriculum that studies international reality and analyzes events according to the idea of power and interest, which are the field of continuous conflict between the actors to increase power in the way dictated by the interests of the parties.

The tools of this approach are to navigate the reality of power and interest and to repeat observation to explain reality and find scientific rules to guide understanding reality and foreseeing the future.

By observing reality, the hypothesis was arrived at and its validity was tested, hence it is valid for interpretation, generalization and expectation.1

In other words, the basic elements included in the theoretical framework of study are

Identifying the problem after studying the reality of Sunni Arabs

Develop a hypothesis to explain this problem

Validation of the hypothesis

Search Problem

Sunni Arabs faced the opportunities and challenges of post-2003 Iraq in a way that was quite different from the way the Kurds and Shiites confronted them on the one hand, and they also split vertically on themselves in the way they dealt with the five factors.

Through the multi-page treatment of independent factors by the Kurds and Shiites, the Kurdistan Region has become the only relatively good exception (28) in the standards of security, development and human rights compared to the rest of the provinces of Iraq from 2003 to 2017, and the Shiites control the rest of the provinces.

Instead of bargaining with the partners of the homeland, Sunni Arabs fell into the trap of velayat-e faqih,29 more than once, employing them in its struggle against the American model in light of the chaos of stateless factors and the chaos of the relationship between religion and state among Shiites and Sunnis.

The chaos of the relationship between religion and state among Shiites and Sunnis means that the Shia theory of the Imamate and the Sunni theory of the caliphate then identify the political with the religious in the form of a political model that claims guardianship in the name of religion.30

This chaos in the relationship between religion and the state has done a great service to Wilayat al-Faqih by making Iraq an arena of conflict between Sunnis and Americans on the one hand and between Sunnis and Shiites through the factor of al-Qaeda and ISIS on the one hand and the sectarian factor on the other.

The resistance has done a great service to Iran, which is seeking the departure of U.S. troops, and it was achieved in 2011. The Sunni-Shia conflict has lost any value to the participants in political participation without a region.

In the eyes of Iran, Sunni Arab symbols and audiences have become terrorists pursued under Article Four Terrorism,31 and in the eyes of the Americans are terrorists or potential terrorists,32 because of their intellectual or practical association with the factors of al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Hence it is clear that the main problem of Sunni Arabs lies in the fact that their mentalities and central religious and national systems did not discover the international game in Iraq after 2003.At a time when they had to ally themselves with the international community to face the chaos of the factors of statelessness from al-Qaeda, ISIS or sectarian militias, they lost the direction of the compass and faced the international community and fell into its captivity.

Maliki's punishment of the awakenings that fought al-Qaeda in alliance with the Americans in 2007 and his punishment of the Hirak movement with ISIS in 2013 may indicate that Maliki's goal and behind him the factors of non-state is to hit the Sunni Arabs with the international community so that his game succeeds and behind him Iran in Iraq that Sunni Arabs are terrorists and that Iran is an ally of the Julian community in the fight against terrorism.

Research Hypothesis

This study was based on the premise that a strategic shift had taken place in the international system after the liberation of Kuwait.A similar thing would be repeated after the liberation of Mosul in 2017 and that the liberation of Mosul in 2017 on Sunni Arabs would have a similar impact perhaps to the impact of the liberation of Kuwait in 1991 on the Kurds of Iraq.

The International Kuwait Liberation Alliance established the first step in building Iraq's new model by imposing the Kurdistan Region on the ground with the support of the Security Council in its resolution 688 of April 5, 1991.

Then the second international coalition in 2003 provided other unlimited support to the Kurdistan Region.Then the third international coalition after the fall of Mosul in 2014 supported the Kurdistan Region as well and still is. The lack of understanding by Sunni Arabs of the strategic transformations of the events of 1991 and 2003 and their reflection on Iraq from which the Kurds benefited caused the defeat of the Sunni Arabs.

The failure of Sunni Arab assimilation is due to the mentalities, relations, culture and central religious, national, social and political systems of Sunni Arabs that suffer from the chaos of the relationship between religion and the state and are looking for either a central religious model that has been overtaken by events since 1920, or a central secular nationalist model that has been overtaken by events since 2003.

Without seeking to end this chaos in the relationship between religion and the state and get out of the category of terrorism that confronts them by building an intellectual and practical model commensurate with the international, regional and local realities, they will fail again after Mosul to impose their model.

To examine this hypothesis, the study posed a series of questions and answered them.

Has there been a strategic shift in the model of governance in the new Iraq after 1991?

Are the transformations of Iraq 2017 similar to those of Iraq of 1991?

Was the Sunni Arabs' lack of understanding of the 1991 strategic shift a reason for their failure?

Do the mentalities of the Arabs and their central systems bear the reason why they do not understand this?

Does the chaos of the relationship between religion and state and ruler to the governed bear responsibility for this failure?

If so, how will Sunni Arabs face the opportunities and challenges of Iraq 201?

Chapter Five

Hypothesis testing

To test the research hypothesis we will consider Sunni Arab opponents and participants after 2003 as non-independent factors that faced five independent factors.

When we are exposed to the influence of each factor on the Sunni Arabs, we assume that each of them independently hits the participants and opponents, and each responds to the repercussions of this or that factor according to the system and mentality of each party.

These factors examined the nature and characteristics of the Sunni Arab mentality and system, and showed that Sunni Arabs lack the competing model and that their mentality and systems were defeated by international and local reality due to their centrality and living in the past and the chaos of the relationship between religion and the state at that time.

These factors revealed that Sunni Arabs could not get out of the chaos and confront al-Qaeda, ISIS or militias without an alliance with the United States and acceptance of the constitution and the federal model.

And if the Sunnis have a coming opportunity, it lies in linking their identity to the ground as the Kurds did, and not to any intellectual, national, or religious factor that crosses borders because they are factors that are considered terrorist today

Here is a breakdown of the interactions that have taken place between independent and non-independent factors and with them discussions in an attempt to come up with a formula that can be worked on in the post-Mosul and Daesh era.

Independent factors

Al , Qaeda and Daesh

American Factor

Kurdish Factor

Sectarian Factor

The Political Process and the Constitution

First

Al , Qaeda and Daesh

It is difficult in international relations to interpret any event and phenomenon based on one or only motives.33 Because international relations are ultimately an interaction between human groups in which the primary, secondary, direct and indirect causes and motives overlap.

When we read the rise of al-Qaeda or ISIS or its decline in isolation from its local, regional and international context, we fall into the circle of error, so the talk here will be about al-Qaeda and ISIS and about the center in which it has expanded or receded from it locally, regionally and internationally.

According to this approach, ISIS and al-Qaeda are armed non-state intellectual and practical actors with a clear political goal in mind.They have formed opposing regional axes and moved the region from the state world to the world of non-statehood.38

Al-Qaeda and ISIS transferred the authority and sovereignty of Westphalian nation-states that came after 1920 to the authorities of transnational groups on the one hand and to local sectarian sub-groups and identities.36

In such a historic regional divide between a regime formed 100 years ago and a regional order that has not yet stabilized, the divider has allowed al-Qaeda and ISIS to expand here and there amid a geopolitical vacuum caused by the 9-11 attacks that broke the foundations of the global and regional order.

Attacks have broken and fragmented the foundations of local politics in the Middle East since the end of World War I, necessarily calling for international alliances, one against al-Qaeda after the 9-11 attacks and the other against ISIS after Mosul fell to ISIS in 2014.

The 2003-2014 Alliance completed the 1991 Alliance in the task of drawing up a new political map for Iraq and the region, and there was competition between models that differed in their structures and agendas within the process of competing for the 2003 Iraq model.35

Hence, Al-Qaeda, Daesh and its ilk are among the enormous challenges that faced Sunni Arabs in Iraq in 2003 and contributed to the entry of Iraq and with it the Sunni Arab provinces into the throes of conflict and difficult competition34 for the model of Iraq 2003 between the model of al-Qaeda and Daesh on the one hand, the model of the Kurdistan Region on the other hand and the model of sectarian militias on the third hand at a time when Sunni Arabs did not have a specific model or a rival entity.37

Sunni Arabs were divided in dealing with al-Qaeda and ISIS, which is hostile to the international order, and some Sunni Arab parties opposed to the political process stood in favor of this factor, while the participants did not clearly resolve their position on it.

Although on both sides there are Islamists, Baathists, nationalists, Salafists, independent community figures, tribal sheikhs and religious scholars, Sunni Arabs have been divided between opponents and participants, but most opponents are counted on the Baath Party intellectually or practically, and most of the participants belong to or are counted on the Muslim Brotherhood intellectually or practically.39

The opponents have allied, served, or engaged in dialogue with al-Qaeda and ISIS and may have hoped for victory.40 While the participants were silent about the absurdity of al-Qaeda and ISIS and did not stand by their hostile position openly fighting them except for the 2007 awakenings, who fought al-Qaeda in alliance with Petraeus,41 after the fall of the Sunni Arab provinces to al-Qaeda following the bombing of Samarra.

But the experience of fighting al-Qaeda was aborted by Maliki after the withdrawal of America in 2011 and its symbols were targeted until the Sunni Arab movement in 2012, which Maliki also targeted with ISIS, which toppled Mosul along with the rest of the Sunni Arab provinces.

Sunni Arabs were seen as incubators of al-Qaeda and then ISIS, although Sunni Arabs are the most affected by them.Sunni Arab parties, or some of them participants and opponents, were considered terrorists, potential terrorists (42), or unreliable security and political in the new Iraq.

These parties did not sing that some of their parties had fought al-Qaeda and ISIS without publicly adopting their fight and without allying with the international coalition against them. The reason is that the chaos of al-Qaeda and ISIS needs the Sunni Arabs to fight them in alliance with the Dali community, not to watch the victory of one side or to stand with al-Qaeda and ISIS against the international coalition.

Hence, the loss of Sunni Arabs with this base and ISIS is considered a net loss.The reason is due to the mentalities and systems of the Sunni Arabs central past, where the religious and the political identified and did not absorb the international and local strategic transformations and collided with them and were defeated.

Sunni Arab provinces have become an arena for chaos for al-Qaeda and ISIS on the one hand, militias on the other and international alliances on the other.Sunni Arabs have been accused of terrorism as symbols and the public from the attacks of 11-9-2001 to the Samarra bombings of 2006 to the fall of Mosul in 2014 until four years of terrorism were named.

If this is the dilemma of Sunni Arabs in the past fourteen years, then its solution lies in an Arab model of mentality and a distinct Sunni Arab system that can be a competitor.

The war between ISIS and al-Qaeda, which are armed non-state religious factors that transcend borders, requires an alliance with the international system.

In order to be ready to fight ISIS and al-Qaeda in alliance with the international community, this requires that he accept the constitution, defend it, and fight for it, because al-Qaeda and ISIS are hostile factors to the borders of the national state and the constitution.

Acceptance of the constitution requires acceptance of the federal model that has been launched in Iraq since 1991 in Kurdistan with the support of the international coalition.

Linking identity to the land means linking it to the borders of a Sunni or geographical Arab region and not to any cross-border intellectual, religious or national factor as ISIS and al-Qaeda did.

The coming years will not be furnished with flowers in front of Sunni Arabs, even if they proceed according to the geopolitical roadmap, but they will enable them to have a model capable of competing in Iraq's turbulent arena.

secondly

American Factor

America's occupation of Iraq in 2003 and then its withdrawal from it in 2011 after the formation of the Iraq model in 2003 and then its return to it in 2014 and the arrival of the Trump to the White House in 2017 is considered an independent factor(43) in Iraq 2003-2017.

An independent and fundamental factor on the mentality, system and culture of the Sunni Arabs opposed and participants as it is on others.Everyone has become face to face with this stronger international factor that is trying to dismantle and reconstruct the old Middle East system with a new Middle East system, the first step of which was to occupy Iraq and open the way for creative chaos by dissolving the state, the army and the political system.

Creative chaos (44) means lifting the repressive power represented by Saddam's regime and leaving room for Iraqi religious, social and political factors to wrestle with each other or with others unchecked before the new Iraq can be reshaped with a political model whose first steps began in 1991 in the Kurdistan Region.

One of the characteristics of this creative chaos that Iraq has been living through since the occupation is that its end is unlimited and has a high price in which chaos, violence, fear and hope prevailed, and the traditional balance between local and regional forces was broken.45 In which ideas, conditions and non-state factors moved across borders.

Because of this chaos and geopolitical vacuum created by the occupation and the divergence of the agenda of Iraq's neighboring countries with each other in the face of these challenges, the desire and terror of the United States has reached an alliance or competition at a time when the Sunni Arab parties have been divided between an opposition resistance and a co-resister.

Turkey, Jordan, and former U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad tried to bring together Sunni Arab opposition parties and engage and understand with the United States in exchange for a cessation of violence, but failed (46) until the Samarra bombings occurred and the Sunni Arab provinces fell to al-Qaeda.

The repercussions of the Samarra bombings and the fall of the Sunni Arab provinces to al-Qaeda prompted some Sunni Arab parties to the first practical alliance with America to fight al-Qaeda.This alliance marked the first practical strategic shift of Sunni Arabs with America.47

But Maliki targeted the first experiment of a Sunni Arab alliance with America with unprecedented cruelty after the U.S. withdrawal in 2011.At the same time, he also targeted most of the Sunni Arab participants, the 2012 Hirak movement, which Maliki targeted with ISIS after releasing it from prison, says Hassan al-Shammari, Maliki's justice minister in his second term.[48]

The return of the United States after the fall of Mosul opened the door once again to repeat the experience of the 2007 alliance between the Sunni Arab Americas.But most of the Sunni Arab parties that met the Americans after the fall of Mosul were not ready for a second experiment because they thought the Americans had handed them over to Iran after the withdrawal.49

However, the chances of success of a new alliance experiment are promising and may involve multiple Sunni Arab parties, and the Nineveh Guard experience may be the nucleus of an upcoming alliance experience between Sunni Arab parties, the United States, and their regional allies.

Especially in light of the arrival of Trump to the White House and the release of the Olybright Hadley report (50) with the existence of mutually reinforcing international and regional tracks, including the Future of Iraq Group headed by former US Ambassador Ryan Crocker, all of which push Sunni Arabs to trivialize with the United States to prevent the emergence of ISIS and al-Qaeda and prevent an upcoming Sunni insurgency by filling the political vacuum in their provinces and paving the way for federal local government in accordance with the constitution.

The evolution of the relationship between Sunni Arabs and the United States over the past ten years may indicate America's desire to find a Sunni ally that accepts the model of a secular, federal Iraq.The United States may have wanted to do so since 2003, but Sunni Arab mentalities and systems were not prepared for such a move.51

America may have left the Sunni Arabs to the kitchen of creative chaos that matured them, making them closer to the United States after the fall of Mosul and its liberation than to any other party.

What is remarkable about the development of the relationship between Sunni Arabs and the United States during the chaos of the past fourteen years is the existence of the model of the Kurdistan Region, an ally of the United States, as it struggles with creative chaos and has won it while the Sunni Arabs have been defeated.

The victory of the model of the Kurdistan Region (American) is not only in preventing al-Qaeda and ISIS from tampering with its provinces, but also in preventing sectarian militias.One of the main reasons for the victory of the Kurdistan Region is the nature of the mentality of the Kurds and their federal system, as in their alliance with the United States not only after 2003 but since 1991.

The defeat of the Sunni Arabs in the face of creative chaos and the victory of the Kurdistan Region may push that the next stage in Iraq after the liberation of Mosul will witness a strategic shift in the mentality of Sunni Arabs not only towards an alliance with the United States against al-Qaeda, ISIS and militias, but also with the model of the Kurdistan Region, which is heading today towards a referendum that may open a door for Sunni Arabs to such a person or to federalism.

This referendum, combined with the strategic shift in the mentality of Sunni Arabs in alliance with the United States and the Kurds, if they happen, is relatively likely to open up to Sunni Arabs the implementation of Article 119 of the Constitution to transform their provinces into federal regions, whether by negotiating with Baghdad or by imposing the order therein by force, as the Kurds did in 1991.

Although the new roadmap may open up opportunities for Sunni Arabs to have a presence under the sun, it may also open up difficult challenges for them.Some Sunni Arab parties that reject federalism and are linked to al-Qaeda, ISIS, or militias oppose this strategic shift and may target it as Maliki targeted the 2007 experience.But the 2017 phase will not be the same as the 2007 phase with the return of the United States.

thirdly

The Kurdish Factor

The policies of the British Mandate after the fall of the Ottoman Empire paved the ground in Iraq to create Kurdish identity and paved the ground for the creation of sectarian identity through the repression of both sides, whether by the nationalist regimes of West Valea that launched a crackdown on the Kurds or by the Iraqi Citizenship Law in 1924, which divided Iraqis into two grades A and B(52).

Since the Balkanization of the Kurds and their distribution to Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria after World War I, the Kurdish factor has become a local and regional problem in the twentieth century.

Mahmoud al-Hafid, the grandson in Iraq, and Sheikh Saeed al-Kurdi in Turkey, resisted the model of the new regimes in Iraq and Turkey, and found themselves affected after an eye until they were later forced to harmonize with the international system and ally with it against centralized secular regimes that emerged in the 1920s in the region.

Hence the mentality and system of the Kurds changed and gradually pushed them towards a secular federal model allied with the United States in three international alliances from 1991 to 2014 that led to the success of the Kurdish model in competing with other models on the model of Iraq 2003 (54).

The first international coalition led by the United States pushed the Kurdish model against the model of the secular, central, nationalist system in Iraq to unprecedented levels, which first enabled it to control three provinces after the liberation of Kuwait by Security Council resolution 688 of 5 April 1991.55

The Kurdish model was then able thanks to the Second International Alliance to include its rights in the 2005 constitution.When Baghdad refused in 2007 to implement Article 140(56), the Kurdish model took control of the areas of Article 140 after the fall of Mosul in 2014.

As the Kurdistan Region prepares for the referendum under five American bases in the region, the Popular Mobilization militias threatened Erbil if the liberated areas did not hand over the areas of Article 140 to Baghdad(57) after the liberation of Mosul.The President of the Republic has already indicated that the battle after Mosul will be in Kirkuk the militias' threat to the areas of Article 140 (58) in Mosul.

The threat of militias suggests that the equation for liberating Mosul and the referendum on Kirkuk are two sides of the same coin. Whoever has the say in Mosul will probably have it in Kirkuk and whoever has it in Kirkuk owns it in Baghdad because Kirkuk Sarajevo is Iraq and the mother of its issues.59

He also points to the similarity of the ISIS and militia model in that the two sides are opponents of the Kurdistan model as central religious models that reject the existence of the state and their goal serves Iran's goal of keeping Iraq an unstable arena in which it fights outside its borders.

The victory of the Kurdistan model in the referendum battle after Mosul would represent an unprecedented loss of the model of Iranian militias in Iraq as it is of ISIS.Hence Iran was the only country objecting to the referendum, as Hoshyar Zebari argues.60

Thus, the Kurdistan Regional Referendum will open up opportunities and challenges for Sunni Arabs, especially since the relationship between Sunni Arabs and the Kurdish factor has developed in a way that is almost identical to the development of their relationship with the American factor.

The relationship of Sunni Arabs with the model of the Kurdistan Region has varied over the past fourteen years. The opponents, most of whom are counted on the Arab nationalist current, rejected it as well as the constitution and the political process.

The participants were divided into parties opposed to the Kurdistan model, including the National Dialogue Front led by Saleh al-Mutlak, although their rhetoric has gradually changed over the past fourteen years.

While Hizb al-Islami signed a memorandum of understanding with Erbil61 in 2006, it failed to have any significant practical reality, perhaps at a time when Sunni Arab provinces fell to al-Qaeda after the bombing of Samarra in 2006.

The refusal to implement Baghdad's Article 140 at the end of 2007 and Article 119 in 2009 (62) and the failure to implement the Erbil Agreement following the 2010 elections destabilized Baghdad's relationship with the Kurdistan Region and the rapprochement of Sunni Arabs with the Region.

The fall of Mosul in 2014 and the embrace of the Kurdistan Region of more than three million displaced Sunni Arabs helped to break the bonds of the Shiite Kurdish alliance63 on the one hand and the rapprochement of Sunni Arabs with the Kurds (64) on the other.

All these stations in the relationship of the Kurdistan Region with Baghdad on the one hand and the Sunni Arabs on the other hand formed a historic earthquake that hit the mentality and organization of the Sunni Arabs after the earthquake of their alliance with America against al-Qaeda in 2007, which made them closer to the model of the Kurdistan Region than to the sectarian model of Baghdad.

Just as the militias targeted the experience of the awakenings in the alliance with America in the fight against al-Qaeda, they targeted the experience of the Golestan Region when ISIS was released from prisons to seize Mosul and the rest of the Sunni Arab provinces and besiege the Kurdistan Region but failed with the region while succeeding with Sunni Arabs.

This earthquake has dismantled the mentality of the public and symbols of Sunni Arabs who previously rejected the Kurdistan Region and the people have agreed to play the game of the militias of Iran and al-Qaeda.People have become more accepting of the existence of the Kurdistan Region and of a Kurdish state as well,65 as well as of weaving along its lines in the Sunni Arab provinces.

A referendum on the independence of the Kurdistan Region may open the way for other referendums in the Sunni Arab provinces,66 or it may open a door to the activation of the constitution and the implementation of Article 140 and Article 119 (67), which is the opportunity of the Great Sunni Arabs after Mosul to federalize their provinces.

The Kurdistan Regional Referendum could open a war with ISIS and militias. This could be an opportunity for Sunni Arabs to confront Iran's militias and ISIS with the support of the region, perhaps, and the international coalition as well.

This combined war may lead to the imposition of a new reality in the Sunni Arab provinces adjacent to the Kurdistan Region (Mosul, Salah al-Din, Diyala and possibly Anbar) similar to the reality imposed by the Kurds in Dohuk, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah after the liberation of Kuwait.

With Sunni Arabs scattered and the presence of the Popular Mobilization Forces, the repercussions of the referendum could lead Iraq to become two regions. A Kurdish region is heading towards independence and an Arab region controlled by the Popular Mobilization Forces. Here the year may be divided into two parts. One section is heading to join the (independent) Kurdistan Region and another section will find itself under the control of militias (83)

Thus, 27 years later, it becomes clear that the events have been believed, achieved and still have some of the objectives of Security Council resolution 688 of April 5, 1991, which included that the Kurds are a cornerstone of the ongoing democratic changes in the Middle East.

fourthly

Sectarian Factor

If the 1920 Iraq model had drawn Iraq's external borders and its central secular-nationalist model, the 2003 model had spelled Iraq's internal borders on the basis of its sub-identities and its secular federal governance model.

The British occupation established a model of a new Iraq with a Westphalian national model based on a national identity in the 1920s. But it sowed the seeds of the 2003 Iraq model in its infrastructure through the Iraqi Nationality Law of 1924, which classified their citizenship on the basis of the Ottoman or Iranian citizenship they had previously been, on the one hand, and on the other hand by paying attention to northern Iraq in a way that differed from the rest of Iraq's provinces.52

Security Council Resolution 688 of April 5, 1991, the Transitional Governing Council in 2003 and the 2005 Constitution charted the way for the new model of governance in Iraq.Iraq 2003 with its unconstitutional sectarian models in Baghdad and the constitutional federal Barbil became the core of Iraq in 2003.

Despite the difference between Sistani's authority and the velayat-e faqih authority due to servitude and collision with the United States on the one hand and al-Sisati's lack of faith in velayat-e faqih on the other,[68] the 2003 Baghdad model sided with sectarianism by establishing the Shiite house in 2005 (69) from the first parliamentary elections in 2005 until today.

The sectarian factor has dominated the security and political scene from the first government headed by Ibrahim al-Jaafari in May 2005 until the current Abadi era.If we go beyond the repercussions of the policy of the Jaafari government and his interior minister Jabr Solagh on the Sunnis of Baghdad before the Samarra bombings, the repercussions of the Samarra bombings on Sunnis were doubly difficult.

In light of the US-Iranian clash over the nuclear file, Samarra exploded, and al-Qaeda took control of the Sunni Arab provinces, and sectarian militias took control of Rusafa Baghdad and important parts of its Karkh in light of the silence of the Najaf authorities and Ibrahim al-Jaafari's refusal to declare a state of emergency, sectarian massacres took place against the Sunnis of Baghdad until Ahmed Chalabi said that only 15% of Baghdad's Sunnis remained.70

The Americans decided to withdraw in the Baker Hamilton report (71) and supported the law enforcement plan that led to confronting al-Qaeda with American support for Sunni tribes on the one hand and American support for Maliki to confront the Mahdi Army on the other hand, reducing the influence of the sectarian factor, and Iraqiya won 91 seats on Maliki's list.72

But the sectarian factor prevailed again after the withdrawal of America under Maliki II and the scenario of the bombing of Samarra was repeated in the scenario of the fall of Mosul by ISIS, so ISIS appeared and formed the Popular Mobilization Forces with the fatwa of Sistani and became a parallel army to the state as the Mahdi Army and al-Qaeda were in the first Maliki province.

Just as Maliki's sectarian policies led to the emergence of ISIS, the sectarian behavior of the Popular Mobilization Forces will lead to the emergence of another Daesh as ISIS emerged after al-Qaeda.Sunni Arabs found themselves in Maliki's second term just as they found themselves in his first term a feather in the wind of the sectarian factor.

From this presentation, it is clear that the sectarian factor (militias) and the factor of al-Qaeda and ISIS are two sides of the game of chaos that has put Sunni Arabs between the hammer and the anvil on the one hand, and on the other hand one of them has completed the role of the other and justified its existence in disrupting the constitution of Iraq Iraq and its federal model.

The sectarian factor has been able to divide the word Sunni Arabs in Iraq and prevent any alliance or rapprochement between Kurds and Sunnis or between Shiites and Sunnis.It also aborted the alliance of Kurds and Shiites that arose in 2005 two years after its emergence.

Obama-era Deputy Secretary of State Anthony Blinken argues in an article in the Middle East that* Iraq's current sectarian environment is the best chance for ISIS's second edition with a huge sea of recruits and potential new and potential supporters, meaning that the presence of Shia extremists justifies the presence of Sunni extremists, reinforcing zero outcomes in the reality of Iraq.73

This means that the continuation of the series of harmony of the sectarian factor with the factor of al-Qaeda and Daesh prevented the stability of Iraq on the one hand and used it as a battleground outside its territory in defense of its borders, a bridge linking Tehran to Damascus and Beirut and a negotiating platform for the international community on its influence in the Middle East.74

The sectarian factor helped accomplish its mission that Sunni Arabs did not have a sectarian feeling that made them Sunnis until it was said that Sunnis were not Sunnis.They also for the same reason did not have a unified religious reference and suffered from the absence or plurality of regional shepherds other than a single Shia regional patron and a unified religious reference.25

Several attempts to bring the Sunni diaspora together on a political or religious authority have failed since the formation of the Council of Grilling Ahl Sunna wal Jamaa at the end of 2003 to the Iraqi Accord Front in 2005 to the Iraqi List in the 2010 elections through the Council of Muslim Scholars in 2003 and the Sunni popular movement in 2012.

Despite the success of the sectarian factor in the past fourteen years and its ability to impose itself on the Iraqi scene, its sectarian behavior has left the worst impact and isolated itself from its Arab and international surroundings because of its use of the sacred.75

This is an opportunity that has been provided in a historic station of the new Iraq that may help break the chain of harmony of the sectarian factor with ISIS and al-Qaeda.This lies in several strategic steps, the most important of which is to isolate Iran from the fight against ISIS and isolate the Shiites of Iraq from Iran's militias. In addition, Shiites fight Wilayat al-Faqih militias with international support and Sunnis fight al-Qaeda and ISIS with international support as well.

This was the report of Olivebright-Hadley 2016, the Future of Iraq Group 2016(76), the Monteiro-Brussels meetings 2017(77) and Ankara-Baghdad (78) 2017.

All these international and regional tracks speak of support for a strategy of local governance in Iraq and Syria to break a series of chaos that contradicts the extremism of ISIS and al-Qaeda with extremism and the sectarian factor that feeds each other.

Isolation of Shiites from Iran and Iran from ISIS may be internationally possible, and the events of the fourteen years have revealed that Iran, which is busy installing the Shiite crescent, has become isolated from its regional and international surroundings.75

fifthly

The Constitution and the Political Process

The central religious state that brought Sunni Arabs together before 1920 was absent and they lived under a centralized secular state that brought them together until 2003.

When the central secular state was absent, the mentalities and systems of the Sunni Arabs did not understand its absence, and in the shadow of the wandering of the Sunni Arabs, their limbs multiplied, divided and reflected the compass of the events of the new Iraq, and they were defeated.

Instead of dealing with the Transitional Governing Council79 and the 2005 Federal Constitution, Sunni Arabs were divided into opponents and participants.Opponents rejected it, dreaming of a return to the pre-2003 era without any theoretical or practical data for the success of the resistance; or subservient participants without any practical or theoretical requirements for the success of political participation.20

The result was that the three most important Sunni Arab provinces, Anbar, Mosul and Salah al-Din, failed to vote yes on the 2005 constitution, waiting for the fallen 2003 central state to return. The Arab League-sponsored Reconciliation Conference for Opponents then failed in 2005.

The government did not implement its agreements with the participants, either by consensus in 2006 or by the 2008 legal document of political reconciliation, which was voted on in parliament with the SFA Strategic Agreement in 2008, the 2010 Erbil Agreement or the 2014 Agreement.

The Sahwa that fought al-Qaeda in 2007 and hit the popular movement in 2013 were chased.The participants tried to move towards the implementation of article 119 of the constitution in 2009 and asked the provinces of Diyala and Salah al-Din to turn into provinces, which were a target for Maliki as the awakenings were his goal until the 2012 movement.

The 2012 Hirak movement included all Sunni Arab parties, including awakenings, movements, participants, and opponents.But the mentality of the opposing parties to the political process and the desire for each party to dominate the other nullified the effectiveness of the movement[23] and made it an easy target for the Maki targeted by ISIS.

This means that Baghdad has disrupted the implementation of the constitution despite pretending to protect it from its opponents.The constitution did not have a larger opponent than militias sheltering in the Baghdad government in addition to al-Qaeda and ISIS.Hence we discover how unconscious the mentalities of Sunni Arabs were in their rejection or reluctance to accept and defend the constitution as the Kurdistan Region did.

When you compare the failure of Sunni Arabs in dealing with the constitution and the political process with the success of the sectarian and Kurdish factor, we find that the success of the sectarian factor despite its violation of the constitution and the political process is due to the existence of a parallel reference to the state with the support and sponsorship of Iran.

As for the Kurds, they participated in Baghdad in the constitutional political process and with them a region that they have ruled since 1991 and according to the constitution since 2005 and with an American ally who supports them. They were geographically, politically and constitutionally opposed to Baghdad, which was able to resist and win the constitution once and by force again if Baghdad violated the constitution.

The violation of the constitution in practice and theory may be one of the reasons that will lead to the siege of the sectarian factor in the next stage.The referendum (a third constitutional paragraph of article 140 that was not implemented by the government) may open a door to activate the constitution with articles 140 and article 119.The existence of four international tracks from 2015-2017 that support the activation of the constitution and stability has been achieved.

However, this depends on the behavior of the Iraqi government in determining whether Iraq will emerge from the impasse of not activating the constitution and from the policies of marginalization and extremism that preceded and followed the fall of Mosul.77

The international community should provide support in this direction, including convening an international conference to resolve the Iraqi crisis or going to impose Article 119 on the ground with international support.

The political process that took place in 2005 has split its alliances with the fall of Mosul into two parts, one close to Erbil and the second close to Sulaymaniyah.The split of the political process after Mosul may be considered one of the most important strategic shifts in the past fourteen years, in addition to the Sunnis' fight against al-Qaeda with American support, the convergence of Sunnis and Kurds after Mosul and the divergence of Erbil with Baghdad's policies.

Hence, Maliki told the Russian agency Spotbank before his visit to Moscow at the end of last July, "The events in Syria destroyed Mabnanah and the most dangerous entrenchment of countries with the Sunni component at a time when the political process has split."80

With the split of the political process into two parts, the 2018 elections may lead to the formation of a Sunni Shiite Kurdish alliance centered in Erbil and another Shia Sunni Kurdish based in Sulaymaniyah.According to this equation, the federal Kurdish model may push the mentalities and systems of Sunnis and Shiites towards federalism if Abadi succeeds in controlling the compass.If it fails, Iraq may turn to the worst-case scenario.81

Fourteen years after the chaos of Iraq in 2003, the constitution was able to be the most important criterion of the progress or delay of the models competing on the model of the new Iraq and the most important practical laboratory to measure the mentality and system of Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Shiites.

At a time when the Kurds have triumphed over Baghdad, al-Qaeda and ISIS with the constitution and the Sunni Arabs have failed because of their rejection of it or their reluctance to accept it, Shia Arabs today stand in the face of challenging the constitution and the political process that may resemble the challenge faced by Sunni Arabs after 2003.

Although the rejection of the federal constitution is one of the most important reasons for the defeat of Sunni Arabs in the past fourteen years, accepting it, moving towards federalism and preparing to fight al-Qaeda, ISIS and militias for this goal is the way out of the chaos of ISIS and militias.

Chapter VI

Conclusions and recommendations

The defeat of Sunni Arabs in the past fourteen years before the constitution, the political process, the Kurdistan Region, militias, al-Qaeda, Daesh and America proved the validity of the research hypothesis that says that the reason for their defeat is in their mentalities and systems more than in any other reason and answered his questions.

The old central Sunni Arab mentalities and systems that suffer from the chaos of the relationship between religion and the state have been defeated in the face of the earthquake of strategic transformations that have taken place in the international, regional and local system since the liberation of Kuwait through the occupation of Iraq until the fall of Mosul.

Today, after the liberation of Mosul, Sunni Arabs in Iraq stand before a historical opportunity similar to the opportunity to liberate Kuwait.An opportunity similar in its geopolitical impact on Sunni Arabs to the opportunity to liberate Kuwait in 1991 on the Kurds of Iraq.

Without the Sunni Arabs in Iraq seeking to end the chaos of their old systems and mentalities and the chaos of the relationship between religion and the state, which put them in the category of terrorism locally, regionally and internationally, and to build an intellectual and practical model commensurate with the international, regional and local realities, they will be defeated again after Mosul.

Comparing the defeat of Sunni Arabs with the success of the Kurds and the confusion of the Shiites, the picture of the scene becomes clearer.The Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds have been exposed to the same independent factors of al-Qaeda, ISIS, sectarian militias, an American factor, a political process and a constitution.

In addition, the Kurds have entered the arena of competition for the new Iraq and enjoy an alliance with the United States, a secular federal governance model imposed on the ground since 1991, a political model of two major parties similar to the United States, the Washington Understanding of 1998 after an armed conflict from 1993-1998, an alliance with the Shiite alliance and even a reversal in 2007, a continuous rapprochement with Turkey under the auspices of America in 2007, and a rapprochement with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that is increasing day by day.

Despite all their alliances, model, and resources, their rivalry with Sunnis and Shiites in the past fourteen years has not been furnished with flowers, but their model has succeeded and lost its Sunni and Shia rivals.

Unlike the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites have the same intellectual and practical dilemma.If Sunnis preceded the Shiites in failure, the Shiites are still on the behalf.If we compare the mental and practical structure of the Kurds with the structure of the Sunni and Shia Arabs, it is clear that the success of the Kurds has nothing to do with the majority claimed by the Sunnis and claimed by the Shiites.

The Kurds, 20 percent of Iraq's population, have succeeded in exchange for the failure of Sunni Arabs and Shiites, each of whom make up twice their share of the population, as evidenced by the fact that Najaj does not depend on the many and the few as much on the competitive model in addition to alliances and resources in light of the major international transformations after 1991.

The aforementioned hypothesis also proved that the success of the model of the Kurdistan Region is a cornerstone of the success of the new federal model of Iraq.The success of the Kurdish model qualifies it perhaps to federalize the mentalities and systems of Sunni and Shiite Arabs in the coming years, whether through the political process or through the imposition of a fait accompli on the ground or both.

Take, for example, the Kurds called 1991, 2003 and 2017 the years of liberation, while the Sunni Arabs called 2003 the day of a black occupation and the Shiite Arabs called it the day of liberation.

Facing the challenges and opportunities of 2017 with central religious armed factions linked to Wilayat al-Faqih and isolated internationally and regionally is almost identical to the way Sunni Arabs faced the opportunities and challenges of 2003 inch by inch.

If Sunni Arabs are to learn from the lessons of the past fourteen years and face the challenges of the coming years in a Kurdish-like way, Iraq's Arab Shiites may enter the era of chaos that Sunni Arabs entered in 2003.

The reconfiguration of the mentalities of Sunni Arabs has become a cornerstone and a realistic necessity to overcome the major Arab-Sunni crisis on the one hand and on the other hand to face the challenges and opportunities of the coming years, which will not be furnished with roses just as the previous Kurdish years were.

The basis of this new formula is the Sunni Arabs' awareness of the strategic shifts in the new international order led by the United States of America, which they have been experiencing a fundamental role in their country since 1991.

And that this realization turns into a will that is embodied intellectually and practically by not clashing with international reality first. Second, to link the Arabs' national and religious identity to the land and not to any cross-border intellectual, national or religious factor, this is considered terrorism.

And thirdly in accepting the secular federal model and allying with the international system in fighting transnational factors represented by ISIS or militias, and fourth in insisting on the implementation of the constitution and not allowing Baghdad to bypass it and them in the model of the Kurdistan Region as well.

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2- Yasser Al-Za'atra - Sunni Arabs in Iraq - Fears and Challenges - 3-10-2004 - Al-Jazeera Website

3- Raed Al-Hamid - The Ten Lights on Armed Factions in Iraq - Damascus Center for Theoretical Studies and Civil Rights -

4- Izz al-Din al-Allam, Royal Literature, A Study in the Structure and Constants of the Political Discursive System, World of Knowledge Series, No. 324, February 2006, International Presses, Kuwait, p. 206

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27. Emily Ananostos, Jessica Louis McVette, Jennifer Cafarella, Alexandra Gotoski - Center for War Studies - The Sunni Revolution in Iraq and Hero of the New Year(http://iswresearch.blogspot.com.tr/2016/11/anticipating-iraqs-next-sunni-insurgency.html

28- Al Jazeera Online - Kurdistan Region of Iraq - 5-7-2014

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35- Elik, Suleyman. 2008. “Testing the capacities of middle power relations in international politics: The Case of Turkey and Iran”. Durhan theses, Durham University, Durham Page.79-465 E-Theses Online:http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2506

35-Kategorie, B. 2012. “What is meant by the ‘Westphallian System’- And has it ever

Existed?” Brighton, UK,page. 1

36- Sigmarsson, Daei. 2008 “Globalization vs. State Sovereignty: Constitutional Rights in a Crisis? Page.4

37- Who speaks for Sunni Islam?Osama Abu Irshid, New Arab, 10 March 2017

38-Charountaki, Marianna. 2012.” Turkish Foreign Policy and the Kurdistan Regional Government” Perceptions, vol. 4, Pp.19

39- Yasser Al-Za'atra - Sunni Arabs orphans of politics in Iraq - 2016 http://www.aljazeera.net/knowledgegate/opinions

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43- Dr. Ahmed Ibrahim Khader- Differences between the independent variable, the dependent variable and the intermediate variable - http://www.alukah.net/web/khedr/0/53865/#ixzz4npkqALFi

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47- Hassan Abu Haniyeh - Awakenings. Coalition.. Islamic State

48- Iraqi Minister of Justice - Hassan Al-Shammari: Mentions the reason why the Maliki government facilitated the escape of ISIS leaders from Iraqi prisons - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVNFZSjnR1A

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56- Dr. Mohammed Ahsan: If Article (140) is not implemented, the Constitution will be suspended - 2006| KRG

57- Asaib Ahl al-Haq Movement calls on the Peshmerga to withdraw from Mosul http://taghribnews.com/vdceex8wwjh8pvi.dbbj.html

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60- Hoshyar Zebari, former Minister of Finance, no one objected to the referendum except Iran http://www.thebaghdadpost.com/ar/story/39983/

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63. Writings-Analysts: Shia Alliance Ended June 26, 2016

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66- Al-Hakim: The Kurdistan referendum may open the door to separation for other provinces - the obelisk - http://almasalah.com/ar/news

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76- President Ambassador Ryan Crocker - Executive Director Dr. Nusseibeh Younis - Report of the Future of Iraq Working Group - Achieving long-term stability to ensure the defeat of Daesh -

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79.Transitional Governing Council http://www.alyaum.com/article/1093343

80- Sputnik: Maliki reveals the reality of the liberation of Mosul and Russia's role in preventing the region from collapsing - https://arabic.sputniknews.com/interview/20170721

81- Petraeus warns of civil war in Iraq after the end of ISIS-http://www.skypressiq.net/2016/08/1 8

82- The French-American anthropologist Scott Atrán - the only solution to defeat the Islamic State is a Sunni counter-revolution - http://www.mc-doualiya.com/articles/20160515

83- Ali mamouri, Arab sunni areas of iraq see demands to join kurdistan region,ALMONITOR,2017,http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/en/originals/2017/07/kurdistan-mosul-nineveh-sunni-arab-shiite-sectarianism.amp.html

Author Dr.Omar Abdul Sattar Mahmoud

الكاتب د.عمر عبدالستار محمود