For part 1, see:
http://jwaverfpolicy.blogspot.com.au/search?updated-max=2016-10-22T01:48:00-07:00&max-results=7
Iraq's Impending Revolution is perhaps not the kind I previously predicted.
With Trump's Iraq policy coming more and more to light, previous assessments made are no longer relevant. Before, I maintained that the likelihood of a civil war between the Kurds and the rest of Iraq would ensue after the war on ISIS reached its conclusion. I maintained that this would result in the defeat of the Iraqi Army at the hands of the Kurdish Peshmerga, meaning an Iraqi revolutionary like Muqtada Al-Sadr would take control of non-Kurdish Iraq and solidify Iraq's fragmentation.
These claims no longer stand as relevant, due largely to the change in Administration in the United States. In the article, 'the Trump-Iraq Betryal: Why Saudi Arabia is terrified,' I pointed out that Trump's oil policy in Iraq suggests a shift in American policy away from Saudi oil dominance in the Middle-East in favour of Iraq.
Together with this has been Abadi's accommodating proposal to allow the areas occupied by Kurdish Iraq to democratically vote for whether or not they wish to return to mainland Iraq, or whether they are content to be ruled by the Kurds. This suggests a softening of stances between the Abadi government and their Kurdish counterparts.
Yet Trump would cause a revolution in Iraq, but not one benefitting Muqtada Al-Sadr in the slightest. The revolution Trump would inspire would be an oil revolution.
Trump's oil revolution in Iraq would likely stabilize the country drastically. Trump would in his words, 'bomb the hell out of ISIS,' then renegotiate Iraqi's oil deals to maximize benefit for the West and Iraq.
Together with this renegotiation would be Trump leaving behind American troops to protect Iraqi oil deposits from an ISIS insurgency. ISIS would know that should Trump increase oil production in Iraq to benefit trade between the two countries, ISIS' main base of support would evaporate. This has been seen in the Arabian Gulf as well, where Arabs that would otherwise support extremism have been bought off by their oil-rich governments. Trump is likely to use the same method to stabilize Iraq.
Such news couldn't come at a worse time for Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arabian Gulf. For given Trump's policy on Assad remaining in Syria, 'safe zones' in Syria funded by the Arabian Gulf and increased oil relations between Iraq and the West, it seems likely that Trump is set to put sanctions on Saudi Arabia - or at least put Saudi Arabia in an unbearable position, making continued stability in the kingdom impossible.
One sort of revolution would occur in Iraq; another sort would occur in Saudi Arabia. Should Trump succeed, ISIS would be driven out of Iraq and Syria, and instead find its main base in Saudi Arabia.
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