Iraqi security forces pull down a flag belonging to Sunni militant group Isis during a patrol in the town of Dalli Abbas in Diyala province last Monday. Photo: Reuters

Amid the security crisis in Iraq, the country’s new Parliament last week ended its first session in disarray, with MPs failing to nominate a new Speaker or a new Prime Minister. Kurdish and Sunni Arab MPs walked out of Parliament complaining that Shi’ites had failed to propose a new Prime Minister.

According to Iraq’s Constitution, Parliament is required to elect a new Speaker during its opening session; it must then choose a President within 30 days of electing a Speaker and within 15 days of the President’s election, the largest bloc must nominate a new Prime Minister.

Under a de facto power sharing agreement, the Speaker is a Sunni Arab, the Prime Minister a Shi’ite Arab and the President a Kurd. As the leader of the bloc that won the most votes in April’s election, Prime Minister Nour al-Maliki has demanded the right to form a governing coalition, but he is under pressure from his Sunni, Kurdish and even Shi’ite opponents to step down due to his poor handling of the current security situation and his divisive and sectarian policies during the his two terms as Prime Minister.

It was hoped that Iraq’s politicians would put aside their differences in the face of the Isis-led Sunni rebellion in parts of the country, especially after an appeal was made by the country’s most powerful Shi’ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who called on them to agree on the next Prime Minister, Parliament Speaker and President by the time the new legislature met last Tuesday.

But this was not to be, and in the meantime Isis declared the establishment of a ‘caliphate’ covering the territories it occupies in Iraq and Syria. There was more bad news with the UN’s announcement that Iraq’s violent insurgency claimed 2,400 lives – more than half of them civilians – in June alone. The Kurds, meanwhile, extended the boundaries of their own autonomous region, and Kurdish President Massoud Barzani declared that “the goal of Kurdistan is independence”.

Iraq as a unitary state has never looked as fragile as it does today.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, including many Christians, have fled Isis-controlled areas to the relative safety of the Kurdish region. After the capture of Mosul by the jihadists, for example, all the Christians who were still living there fled. Archbishop Bashar Warda of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Erbil, in Kurdish-governed northern Iraq, is reported to have said that for the first time in 1,600 years there was no Mass said in Mosul on Sunday, June 15.

To make matters even more complicated, Syria conducted airstrikes against Isis targets in Iraq, which were welcomed by Prime Minister al-Maliki. Meanwhile, Russia delivered the first batch of fighter jets to Iraq, and according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, Iran has also supplied Iraq with attack jets to help it counter the offensive by Isis.

Iran, in fact, had already sent 2,000 Revolutionary Guards to Iraq to help the government fight the jihadist insurgency. Major General Qassem Suleimani, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ elite Quds Force, was reportedly in Baghdad to oversee the capital’s defence .

This means we are now in the strange situation where the US – which has deployed drones and helicopters to Iraq and which is supplying Iraq’s air force with missiles – is operating ‘alongside’ Iran in this conflict. Washington has also sent 600 (not 300 as originally planned) military personnel to Iraq to advise it in this conflict, bringing the total number of US troops there to 750. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has sent 30,000 troops to its border with Iraq after Iraqi troops withdrew from that area.

So the situation is indeed complicated, and a number of international powers are being drawn into this conflict. The US is so far providing military hardware and ‘advisors’ to Iraq and is determined to stay out of this war, but how will Washington respond should Isis threaten Jordan, for example, one of America’s most important and trustworthy allies in the region? After all, Isis has stated that it wants to incorporate Jordan into its caliphate.

And what if Isis attempts to destabilise Saudi Arabia? How will Washington respond to that? How will Saudi Arabia respond, on the other hand, should Shi’ite Iran get increasingly involved in Iraq?

For the first time in 1,600 years there was no Mass said in Mosul on Sunday, June 15

The increasingly fragile and complex situation in Iraq now threatens to spiral out of control and draw more outside powers into the conflict. The break-up of the country into Sunni, Shi’ite and Kurdish enclaves would plunge Iraq into many years of ethnic cleansing and sectarian violence and needs to be avoided at all costs. However sympathetic one may feel towards Kurdish independence, now is not the right time for the Kurds to secede; such a development would only encourage the Shi’ites and Sunnis to follow suit.

The Kurds and Sunnis have suffered under the Shi’ite-led Maliki government and their grievances are certainly justified. Isis has been able to exploit the injustices committed against the Sunnis and have joined forces with Sunni tribesmen and Baathist era soldiers. Thankfully, the Kurds, who suffered tremendously under Saddam Hussein and have nothing in common with Isis, have been putting up a brave fight against the jihadists.

Iraq’s political and religious leaders have a duty to ensure that Iraq survives as a unitary state. On the international front, the US, EU, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia must put aside their differences and urge Iraqi leaders to compromise, form a government of national unity consisting of Shi’ites, Sunnis and Kurds and work towards the creation of a loose federal state with greater autonomy for all three regions.

Prime Minister Maliki must be urged – especially by Iran – to step down and be replaced by a unifying figure. Time is running out, and hopefully, when Iraq’s Parliament meets again on Tuesday, some common sense will prevail.