HERE’S a sobering thought: if George W. Bush had still been president of the US, American bombs and missiles would probably have hit targets in Iran, Syria and Iraq by now. As a result, the Middle East would have been an even bigger mess than it is currently. So I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies.

But even with Obama’s reluctance in projecting American power to appease his many critics, events in Syria and Iraq are rapidly spiralling out of control. More than just a land grab by ISIS — the Islamic State of Iraq and Al Sham — this escalating conflict is widening the Shia-Sunni rift, raising the frightening spectre of an apocalyptic sectarian war across the Middle East and beyond.

While Obama has responded with sensible caution to the crisis in Iraq, there are many voices in the US calling for air strikes to halt the ISIS advance and the collapse of the Iraqi state. These armchair warriors do not grasp the fact that it is past interventions that have led to the present situation. So when Tony Blair raised his head above the parapet to defend his role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, his words were promptly dismissed across the political spectrum in England. In an essay about the ISIS campaign on his website, Blair wrote: “We have to liberate ourselves from the notion that ‘we’ have caused this. We haven’t.”

We have these two sects locked in battle for control across the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and Iran struggle for pre-eminence, using proxies to project power from Lebanon to Bahrain.

Responding in his Daily Telegraph column, the colourful right-wing London mayor, Boris Johnson, wrote: “I have come to the conclusion that Tony Blair has finally gone mad.” Going on to suggest psychiatric help for the ex-prime minister, Johnson pointed out that by dismantling the Iraqi army and sacking 50,000 ruling Ba’ath Party members after the invasion, the occupying forces created chaos.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq continues to cast a long shadow. By the time American forces pulled out in 2011, the war was deeply unpopular in the United States. This restricts Obama’s options now, even if he had been inclined to intervene. Another problem is that an intervention to prop up the deeply unpopular and divisive Noori Al-Maliki would be seen as siding with the Shias. Such a move would align the United States with Shia regimes in Iran, Iraq and Syria.

Clearly, this would not be welcomed by Washington’s conservative Sunni allies in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the UAE. These are the states that have, directly and indirectly, been funding and arming the most extreme factions in Syria, including ISIS. But as we in Pakistan know to our cost, once you release the jihadi genie from the bottle, you soon lose control. Now the Saudis are alarmed at the threat ISIS poses to them.

There has been much talk about a convergence of Iranian and US interests in defeating ISIS. Apart from Arab and foreign militants, disgruntled Iraqi Sunnis have joined ISIS, and in the captured towns, the populations are so mixed that any aerial bombardment would cause havoc. Thus, the Americans would like to see boots on the ground, but not their own. This leaves the Iranians as possible candidates.

But Iran has made it clear that while it will defend venerated Shia shrines, it won’t join in the fighting just to prop up the Maliki government. The third element in this volatile mix are the Kurds whose peshmerga fighters have seized control of Kirkuk and surrounding areas they have long claimed. For the Kurds this is an opportunity, not a threat. With a powerful and cohesive armed force, they will hold and defend Kurdish territory, and will probably not wish to pull Maliki’s chestnuts out of the fire for him or the Americans.

Another threat emanating from the conflict is the presence of hundreds of volunteers from America and Europe who have joined ISIS ranks. In one video, a British Muslim is seen exhorting his brethren in the West to join him. The thought of these battle-hardened and trained jihadists returning to their countries to carry out terrorist attacks there is a recurring nightmare among Western security services.

Largely unsaid in all the media coverage is the fact that it is Sunni groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda who pose the biggest threat to world peace with their aggressively global agenda. Their goal is nothing short of the imposition of the Sharia across the Muslim world ruled by a Caliph. To this end, they have declared jihad on everybody who stands in their way. By contrast, Shias are viewed as having strictly local and regional agendas.

So we have these two sects locked in battle for influence and control across the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and Iran struggle for pre-eminence, using proxies to project power from Lebanon to Bahrain. Where the two sects largely lived in harmony until the invasion of Iraq in 2003, now they are at each other’s throats.

For the United States, there are few viable options. And while it has sent 300 Special Forces troops to advise and stiffen spines among the Iraqi army, it is doubtful that it will do much more than supply intelligence. In any case, ISIS is not likely to overrun Iraq as it doesn’t have the manpower to grab and hold more territory. But then its aim is to carve out its own state from where it can spread its extreme version of takfiri Islam.

Published in Dawn, June 30th, 2014