Iraq is in danger of further disintegration

Its peak point might be gone, but during the past months the Islamic State group has already plundered almost half of Iraq's territory and challenged several neighboring countries.

The rise of the IS group was the result of strategic imbalances in the Middle East, and it marks the start of further chaos in the region. For decades, stability in the Middle East had been maintained by two balances of power: that among global powers from outside, including the United States, which helped maintain the balance by containing Iran and Iraq in the 1990s, and that within, among Israel, Iran, Turkey and the Arab states.

It was the Iraq War in 2003 that opened Pandora's box. The George W. Bush administration might not have intended that, but by overthrowing the Saddam Hussein regime that was predominately Sunni, it created an environment favorable to Shiites. Shiite forces from Iran entered Iraq and established access to Syria, thus forming a Shia crescent; the Sunnis who felt threatened united into military groups and that was the beginning of military confrontation.