THERE IS NO IRAQ:

After Saddam Hussein was removed from power, the US-led transitional coalition embarked on a widespread overhaul of the national government, pruning its ranks of members from Hussein's Baath party.

The Iraqi military was also disbanded, creating "a bulge of angry, disenfranchised Sunni technocrats" among the population. In their book, Stern and Berger estimate that more than 100,000 Baathists were removed from their posts.

Some of them would be poached by Zarqawi's organisation and would later fill the higher ranks of ISIL, proffering a wealth of military knowledge that, among some Baathists, extended as far back as the Iraq-Iran war.

As then-Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki paid hollow lip service to ideas of inclusion while simultaneously employing sectarian-based policies, Zarqawi played on feelings of disaffection in the country's Sunni communities. With his 2004 establishment of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Zarqawi had the blessing of Osama bin Laden to advance towards a total war against Shia Muslims.

"Zarqawi himself was deeply sectarian, but also saw that provoking Sunni-Shia confrontation would work in his favour," said Richard Atwood, New York director of the International Crisis Group, whose work focuses on al-Qaeda and ISIL. "He instigated attacks on Shia religious symbols, provoking a sectarian civil war."

Al-Qaeda in Iraq merged with other groups in 2006 and adopted the name the Islamic State in Iraq while still maintaining tenuous ties to al-Qaeda leadership. According to the Wilson Center, on October 15, 2006, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who took over the group after Zarqawi's death, announced the establishment of the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), with Abu Omar al-Baghdadi as its leader.

By 2010, divides between Sunni and Shia Muslims were extensive, but left unaddressed by an increasingly authoritarian Maliki who, at that point, had named himself his own interior and defence minister.

The state could no longer provide basic services, such as electricity; powerful Sunni tribes, once promised positions in the government in exchange for cooperating with US occupying forces, were shunted aside.

In 2011, anti-government protests erupted across the country. Security forces cracked down, and the state's violent response stoked the furore of a wide array of emerging opposition groups.

As ISIL wedged itself into the deepening furrows between Sunni and Shia Muslims, the group also focused its energies on provoking discord within sects. Demonstrating a savvy for identifying long-present tensions, it infiltrated Sunni tribal communities and turned sub-tribes or generations against each other through the selective backing and funding of groups, Atwood explained. 

"[ISIL's] rise was very much rooted in deteriorating Sunni-Shia relations and Maliki's rule. "ISIL rebuilt underground networks and sleeper cells gradually. Its ranks, including at leadership level, were also reinforced by prison breaks."  [...]

Today, ISIL's territories are shrinking as its fighters face mounting pressure from a US-led coalition, as well as Syrian President Assad's regime backers. Many observers have sounded the coalition attack on Mosul as ISIL's death knell. However, ISIL will always present tremendous problems for state governments - even in its retreat.

"There is a political crisis in Iraq that no one is resolving," said Yezid Sayigh, a senior fellow at Carnegie's Middle East Center." The real question becomes what, if anything at all, is the Iraqi government doing to produce a new political environment because that will shape how local groups respond to ISIL disappearing."

Throughout the years, ISIL has both instrumentalised and deepened sectarian anger and distrust towards states in the region. As ISIL loses land, these sentiments will only pose more trouble for governments attempting to rule in the aftermath.

Last year, the Iraqi parliament angered Sunni politicians when it approved a law to legalise the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), an anti-ISIL force composed of various militia fighters. The PMF now operates alongside the Iraqi military forces - an outrageous affront, according to Sunni Iraqis, who accuse the PMF of committing human rights atrocities against civilians.

Furthermore, foreign powers fighting ISIL have brought with them a separate set of difficulties which, in the coming years, will have an immense effect on the political futures of Iraq and Syria.

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