WI: The US made Iraq recognise Israel as part of the invasion?

The PoD here is that the US has the new Iraqi government recognise Israel as a nation and cut ties with Palestinian militants as a precondition for US withdrawal. What now?
 
In which case the USA is going to be there for a long, long time. Or until they cave in and remove said stipulation and leave anyways.

While Iraq no longer has direct ties to Palestinian groups (Saddam used to fund the PLO and Hamas until the 2003 invasion), Iraq's Shi'ite population is closely tied to Iran and is pretty friendly to them. Iran refuses to acknowledge Israel as anything but a hostile, occupying force in control of sacred Muslim lands, so any Iraqi Shi'ites in power will undoubtedly have similar ideals or will adopt them if they're going to stay chummy with Iran. While they can choose to defy Tehran, it's clear the Americans are bumbling about in the region and will have to leave eventually while Iran is there to stay, plus they're fellow Shi'ites so they can form a natural alliance.

Plus, what if the population wants the USA out now? Will Washington refuse to acknowledge until the new leadership is forced to accept said stipulation? What's to prevent Baghdad from reversing its stance once the American troops are out of Iraq? Also, while the official government policy is to recognize Israel, it would not change how individual people feel about Israel, which would be overwhelmingly in the negative; Egypt is the first Arab/Muslim nation that signed a peace treaty with Israel, and yet the average Egyptian still regards Israel with hostility.
 
The PoD here is that the US has the new Iraqi government recognise Israel as a nation and cut ties with Palestinian militants as a precondition for US withdrawal. What now?

Iraqi leaders either refuse or lose legitimacy and power, maybe their lives too, once the US forces are out.
 
This is something that no person in with any knowledge of the terrible mess that is the middle east would even think of doing . Imposing a recognition would make the entire population become extremist instead of the tiny percentage that did . I am all for peace and the like but must be a realist I do not see it happening in my lifetime nor in my children's . Short of an alien invasion or a second coming of Jesus I see no possibility of a full reconciliation and recognition .
 
The PoD here is that the US has the new Iraqi government recognise Israel as a nation and cut ties with Palestinian militants as a precondition for US withdrawal. What now?

https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iraq-may-execute-MP-for-visiting-Israel

In Iraq, visiting Israel, a country with which Iraq is still technically at war, is a capital crime. The fact that neither a peace treaty has been signed nor this law been repealed shows how inculcated a hatred of Israel is in the Iraqi people's psyche. In 2004, a proposed flag was widely criticized and even burned because it's light blue background was deemed too similar to Israel's flag.

If the Iraqi government recognized Israel, then they're going to lose legitimacy among the Iraqi people, which would lead to a surge in disaffected Iraqis joining insurgent groups.
 
I mean, the Kurds have long enjoyed a warm relationship with Israel, at least by Middle Eastern standards.

The Sunnis, like a lot of Sunnis across the Middle East, have been warming lately on Israel, seeing them as a counter to the Iranian/Shiite influence in the region, especially among the Palestinians.

The trouble will be the Shiites, especially as they start falling more and more under Iranian influence.

There's a reason why with hindsight, trying to keep Iraq unified was a bad idea - like a lot of the Middle East, they're damned by the borders drawn up post-WW1, because you have three very different groups seeking three very different futures.
 
The warming up of relations between Sunni Arabs and Israel (mostly as a result of common hostility to Iran) didn't take place until a decade later. In the mid-2000's such a demand would outrage both Sunni and Shiite Iraqis and would be a demand impossible for any Iraqi regime seeking a semblance of democratic legitimacy to meet. (Anyway, even if Sunnis had improved relations with Israel much earlier--and even if one makes the dubious assumption that Iraqi Sunnis would be as Israel-friendly as, say, Saudi Sunnis--they were a distinct minority in Iraq. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Iraq)

It would also be a horrible diplomatic blunder, convincing the Islamic world that the US was indeed in Iraq for Israel and thus strengthening radicals, both Sunni and Shiite.
 

Khanzeer

Banned
The PoD here is that the US has the new Iraqi government recognise Israel as a nation and cut ties with Palestinian militants as a precondition for US withdrawal. What now?
Iraqis would repeat what is often said by insurgents
"You have the watches
We have the time "
 
What if they negotiated it down to an agreement to recognize Israel only inside the 1948 borders?
That's still recognition of the state of Israel. It's that first step - recognizing Israel as a legitimate government and not a foreign presence occupying Arab/Muslim soil - that's the big step. After that, whether 1948 or post-1967, it's a minor issue.
 
That's still recognition of the state of Israel. It's that first step - recognizing Israel as a legitimate government and not a foreign presence occupying Arab/Muslim soil - that's the big step. After that, whether 1948 or post-1967, it's a minor issue.

The big step is the recognition at all, but it's a far bigger step if they have to sign off on the settlements and occupation as legitimate as well. Many states that provisionally recognize Israel withhold full recognition in light of their policies to make settlements and continue the occupation, and their policy to absolutely refuse the right to return, or rather, it is not considered full recognition by Israel when it's only recognizing the internationally agreed upon borders, and insists on some compromise over the right to return.

It's unlikely that the USA would make this distinction, but it's one that Iraqi government would actually agree to.
 
From 2004:

"A dramatic example of this was the statement by Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi—hand-picked and installed by the U.S.—a few days ago here in Beirut that Iraq would not normalize relations with Israel before the other Arab states did so. Allawi rejects the American and Israeli desire for Iraq to unilaterally establish normal working relations with Israel, presumably because he understands that the majority of Iraqis and other Arabs strongly oppose current American and Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. America has no dearer Arab “friend” than Allawi—and yet even he cannot go along with America's preferred policy options for Iraq's ties with Israel." https://books.google.com/books?id=ccowCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA374&lpg=PA374
 

BigBlueBox

Banned
I mean, the Kurds have long enjoyed a warm relationship with Israel, at least by Middle Eastern standards.

The Sunnis, like a lot of Sunnis across the Middle East, have been warming lately on Israel, seeing them as a counter to the Iranian/Shiite influence in the region, especially among the Palestinians.

The trouble will be the Shiites, especially as they start falling more and more under Iranian influence.

There's a reason why with hindsight, trying to keep Iraq unified was a bad idea - like a lot of the Middle East, they're damned by the borders drawn up post-WW1, because you have three very different groups seeking three very different futures.
Partitioning any Middle Eastern country is impossible without massive ethnic cleansing. Period.
 
Partitioning any Middle Eastern country is impossible without massive ethnic cleansing. Period.

Eh... Iraq maybe not. It offers a pretty clean three-way break, plus, maybe ceding some bits to the neighbors.

Kurds get the Northern bit - be sure to include not just the Kurdish max claims, but the Assyrian bits near Ninevah - the Kurds have aways been the one group that got along with all the various groups that called it home, especially pre-ISIS. Better yet, give them as much as the northern oil fields around Tikrit as possible.

A giant chunk of the Sunni majority West goes can either be another Sunni Arab republic, or given to Jordan. More likely a combination of both.

A chunk of the South, especially the bits inhabited by the Marsh Arabs? Kuwait. They've had a claim on the area forever, they've been a faithful US ally, similar ethnic and religious mix, and they've got more money than god to spent on developing/integrating it. Plus, perfect karma for Sadam's attempt to do the reverse. Plus, not like Kuwait will complain about more oil fields.

What you're left with is a majority Shitte Iraqi rump state centered mostly on Baghdad. Frankly, if the Iranian's want to puppet this last bit, they can feel free.

Boom, you've beefed up two of our main allies in the region, created a third with the Kurds, and the new borders match political/religious/geopolitical lines much better than the abomination created by Sykes-Picot.
 
A chunk of the South, especially the bits inhabited by the Marsh Arabs? Kuwait. They've had a claim on the area forever, they've been a faithful US ally, similar ethnic and religious mix, and they've got more money than god to spent on developing/integrating it. Plus, perfect karma for Sadam's attempt to do the reverse. Plus, not like Kuwait will complain about more oil fields
Who will be treated like second class citizens by kuwait causing resentment.

A giant chunk of the Sunni majority West goes can either be another Sunni Arab republic, or given to Jordan. More likely a combination of both
Ah yes Palestinians still face discrimination in Jordan yet Iraqi sunnis wont?

Kurds get the Northern bit - be sure to include not just the Kurdish max claims, but the Assyrian bits near Ninevah - the Kurds have aways been the one group that got along with all the various groups that called it home, especially pre-ISIS. Better yet, give them as much as the northern oil fields around Tikrit as possible
So screw the sunni arabs in the area? Piss off iran, Syria and turkey and iraq? Hows kurdistan going to transport its oil out surrounded by people who hate them.

Boom, you've beefed up two of our main allies in the region, created a third with the Kurds, and the new borders match political/religious/geopolitical lines much better than the abomination created by Sykes-Picot.
What you have done is caused problems for two allies, pissed off four nations. Pissed off most of the arab population of iraq. Also portrayed USA as nothing more than a imperialist who carving puppet states and straight up proven the american empire is a thing.
 
Poll after poll showed that Iraqis (except perhaps the Kurds) were opposed to partition.

"Contrary to what foreigners think, most Iraqis say they oppose partition: in the BBC/ABC poll, 62% said Iraq should have a unified government and 98% said it would be a bad thing for the country to separate on sectarian lines." https://www.economist.com/leaders/2007/09/13/why-they-should-stay

Also see http://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/2006 July 19 Survey of Iraqi Public Opinion, June 14-24, 2006.pdf "Some people are calling for the segregation of Iraqis according to religious or ethnic sect. Do you agree or disagree with this suggestion?" The "strongly disagree" percentages were 66% in Baghdad, 67% in the South, 64% in Mid-EUphrates, 89% (!) among northern Arabs (forcing them into a Kurdish state would be a great way to promote peace andd harmony, huh?)--but only 16% in the Kurdish areas. (Yet even among the Kurds only 52% gave "agree" or "strongly agree.")

Trying to impose something this unpopular would get the US the enmity of Sunnis and Shiites alike. (Of course these polls are from some years back, but that is precsiely the era we're talking about--this isn't the place for current politics, believe it or not.)
 
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BigBlueBox

Banned
So screw the sunni arabs in the area? Piss off iran, Syria and turkey and iraq? Hows kurdistan going to transport its oil out surrounded by people who hate them.
Not only that but he also wants to screw over the Assyrians, who've made it perfectly clear that they prefer rule by Baghdad over rule by the Kurds that helped the Ottomans genocide them. And he still doesn't address exactly what he thinks will happen to the Sunnis left in the Shiite areas and vice versa.
 
Not only that but he also wants to screw over the Assyrians, who've made it perfectly clear that they prefer rule by Baghdad over rule by the Kurds that helped the Ottomans genocide them
But Kurd aRe SEcUlAr.

The problem is that Iraq history from 1900 has never seen a non-dickhead government. Collapse of the ottoman monarchy power (rise of the young turks) has seen nothing anything good.

Young turk ottomans. *Screw the Assyrians* arabs we will deal with you after.

Hashmite monarchy. Sells out the country, *screw everyone!*

Pre sadam bathist *screw non-arabs*

Sadam *screws everyone except sunni arab (to an extent)*

Post sadam shia dominated. *screw the sunnis*
 
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