When US Ambassador to Türkiye and Special Envoy to Syria Tom Barrack declared at the Doha Forum that federalism and decentralization “have never worked” in the Middle East, he was not offering a bold insight. He was repeating a familiar and deeply flawed argument, one that not only misdiagnoses the region’s crises and risks but also entrenches the very forces that have produced decades of war, repression and state collapse.

Discussing Iraq, Barrack described the past two decades as a “20-year disaster,” arguing that federalism has failed because the Iraqi state cannot enforce its sovereignty. He pointed to Kurdish autonomy, disputes over oil revenues, and a parliament and security sector heavily influenced by the Iran-backed Shia militia known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF). From this, Barrack concluded that decentralized governance does not work. 

Iraq’s difficulty in enforcing sovereignty is not primarily the result of federalism but of sustained external interference and militia influence, most notably from Iran. Tehran has expanded its influence in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon through armed proxies that weaken state institutions and distort the political processes by engaging in sectarian conflict. Blaming Iraqi federalism for outcomes shaped by foreign meddling avoids confronting the central source of state fragility.

Rolling back federalism would not restore Iraqi sovereignty. It would more likely empower the same authoritarian structures and armed actors that federalism was designed to constrain. Improving governance in Iraq requires confronting external interference, strengthening institutions and preserving power-sharing arrangements rather than dismantling them.

The misdiagnosis of federalism and decentralization in the Middle East

Barrack extended this argument further, asserting that “federalization” has failed not only in Iraq but also in Syria, Lebanon and Libya. Yet in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, the most destabilizing forces undermining sovereignty have been Iranian-backed armed factions and prolonged external intervention, not decentralization itself. The fragmentation Barrack laments did not emerge from excessive autonomy but from decades of highly centralized governance that refused to share power and instead relied on repression and coercion.

Syria offers the clearest illustration. The catastrophe there was not caused by decentralization, which never meaningfully existed at the national level, but by decades of authoritarian central rule under the Assad dynasty. The systematic exclusion of political pluralism produced uprising, civil war, mass displacement and atrocities. This is likely to occur again if the Syrian government fails to agree to a decentralized form of governance.

Libya followed a similar trajectory. Former Libyan leader Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi’s centralized and personalized rule hollowed out institutions, creating a post-2011 power vacuum long before any serious experiment in power sharing or decentralization took shape. These cases are not warnings against decentralization. They are indictments of absolutist rule.

What is often ignored in these debates is that decentralization is not a foreign or modern experiment imposed on the Middle East. Forms of local autonomy, communal governance and layered authority existed across the region long before the emergence of modern nation-states. Many of the centralized states now treated as immutable were shaped through imperial arrangements rather than popular consent. Borders drawn in the aftermath of World War I, including through agreements such as the Sykes–Picot Agreement, reflected external strategic interests more than the social and political realities of the peoples living within them. If any state in the region were to break apart, it should occur through negotiation and popular consent, not through repression or enforced unity. Stability rooted in consent is more durable than stability imposed by force.

Authoritarian centralization and external interference

After criticizing federalism in Iraq, Barrack compared governance arrangements in northeastern Syria and other countries in the region to the breakup of Yugoslavia, warning that decentralization leads to “balkanization” and claiming such systems last “for about a second.” This analogy is historically inaccurate. Yugoslavia did not collapse because of decentralization. It unraveled after the death of Josip Broz Tito, when Serbia’s leadership under Slobodan Milosevic sought to centralize power in Belgrade and dominate the federation. The refusal to share power destroyed the equilibrium that had allowed diverse republics to coexist. Balkanization followed attempts to monopolize authority, not the existence of a federal system.

Invoking Yugoslavia as a cautionary tale against decentralization, therefore, strengthens the opposite conclusion. When multiethnic states refuse to accommodate diversity through power sharing, they invite violent collapse.

Barrack’s remarks at the Doha Forum were also marked by notable contradictions. Barrack dismisses decentralization as unworkable, yet acknowledges it as a choice that people of the region should ultimately make. He portrays democracy as largely absent, while praising monarchies as functional without serious engagement with questions of legitimacy or accountability. These inconsistencies raise a legitimate question: do they reflect broader confusion in US thinking toward the region, or merely the incoherent personal views of an American envoy speaking without a clear strategic framework?

Decentralization as a stability solution

The Kurdish experience in Iraq, and increasingly in Syria, further challenges Barrack’s claims. Kurdish self-rule has provided a degree of governance, security and coexistence that centralized regimes repeatedly failed to deliver. This does not suggest decentralization is a universal solution, but it does demonstrate that negotiated autonomy can outperform enforced unity in deeply plural societies.

Barrack also argued that democracy has failed in the region, concluding that “what has worked in this region is a benevolent monarchy.” This preference is less a reflection of regional realities than of US policy priorities that often privilege stability and investment over political development. America remains influential, but it is not the authority on what form of governance best serves the peoples of the Middle East.

The region’s tragedies were not born from too much autonomy but from systems that concentrate power, suppress diversity and treat consent as a national security threat. Decentralization may not work in every Middle Eastern state, but it is the only viable option in Iraq, Syria, Iran and even in Turkey for checking authoritarianism and expansionism and creating a regional balance of power that can prevent chaos and facilitate a system that brings peace, equality, cooperation and stability for all the peoples of the region.

[Kaitlyn Diana edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.