Redrawn lines seen as no cure in Iraq conflict

It is a question that echoes not only in Syria — also effectively divided into mutually hostile statelets — but also across the entire Middle East, where centrifugal forces unleashed by the Arab uprisings of 2011 continue to erode political structures and borders that have prevailed since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire a century ago.

Yet Iraq and Syria’s potential fragmentation along sectarian or ethnic lines is not likely to offer any solution to the region’s dysfunction, analysts say, and may well generate new conflicts driven by ideology, oil, and other resources.

“At least a third of the country is beyond Baghdad’s control, not counting Kurdistan,” said Zaid al Ali, an Iraqi analyst and the author of “The Struggle for Iraq’s Future.” “But any effort to make that official would likely lead to an even greater disaster — not least because of the many mixed areas of the country, including Baghdad, where blood baths would surely ensue as different groups tried to establish facts on the ground.”