The buffoons who created and benefited from this fiasco can't get us out of it
The U.S. wants to work with Iran in Iraq. Iran says the U.S. should stay out of Iraq. Israel warns the U.S. about working with Iran in Iraq. Got that? It's a total fucking buffoon-fest.
On the surface this nascent civil war seems unique to Iraq (Syria, Ukraine, [insert country here]). However, Globalization is the common denominator debilitating all countries right now:
1) All economies are by definition dependent upon the status quo globalized ponzi model i.e. the fundamentally imbalanced East/West trade model that positions every country either as a net "consumer" a net "producer" or a "commodity supplier". Every country fits this model, with the furthest exception Germany, which as I've said before is basically a net producer that exports their surplus to net consumers.
2) Every country is dominated by massively corrupt "elites" who are wholly incapable of understanding problem #1, much less fixing it. They created the ponzi scheme because they were incapable of creating and sustaining a balanced economy. Therefore, any idea that today's legions of country club buffoons and pretenders will get us out of this fiasco is a delusion of the highest order.
The inherent problem can't be "fixed", it can only be collapsed and then reinitialized in a more balanced configuration. There is no plan to get from point "A" where we are today and point "B" a stable economy. No one has a plan, because it's impossible to take today's imbalanced globalized pseudo-economy featuring $200+ trillion in IOUs and turn it into something balanced, without first cancelling out those insolvent IOUs. The debt will all eventually be "discharged", which means all of today's fake billunaire wealth will be disgorged at some point - some sooner and some later.
So, on the surface, the Iraq crisis may well have to do with the fact that it's a "fake" country consisting of multiple distinct "Balkanized" states each of its own ethnic identity. The reality is that these people are significantly geographically intermingled, making a clean delineation between states likely impossible. Unfortunately, that distinguishing factor for Iraq is far from unique, since almost every country on the planet has many different ethnic identities, the U.S., Canada and Australia having the most immigrants per capita and plenty of opportunity for societal acrimony.
Anyone can get along when the money is flowing
The situation in Ukraine at this very moment is its own form of Balkanization and exhibit A of what can happen to any country when the various factions decide one day that they no longer have anything in common. No amount of political wizardry and "diplomacy" can paper over the fabricated economy and the elites standing in the way of any type of reform. When the illusion was safely intact over these past decades, the societal acrimony was suppressed by the illusion of future prosperity. In Canada, every time the Canadian economy goes into recession, there is a referendum (on separation) in Quebec and the Bloc Quebecois picks up votes. It's human nature, at its worst. Suffice to say that if Sunnis and Shias can massacre each other over a slightly different interpretation of the exact same religion, then I rest my case. People who have a future and well looked after children, find a way to look past the fact that we are all inherently different on some level. Finding differences is easy, finding similarities is the key to human survival. Or not.
Therefore, the fundamental common underlying factor in this rising societal acrimony is the disintegrating global economy, now literally only working for Bill Gates, his Davos buddies, and their handful of corporate bukkake whores. So until this globalized Ponzi scheme collapses and is remade into something real, attended by serious leadership devoid of the wholesale corruption that is evident in literally every single country today - then the beatings will continue until morale improves.
