This article argues that the ethnosectarian chaos of today's Iraq is a consequence of state policies and capacity. The same ethnosectarian problems have existed since the birth of the Iraqi state in 1921. However, unlike the post-2003 period where ethnosectarianism has been institutionalized in the body politic, and where the state is unable to project power to subdue sub-state competitors, the pre-2003 period saw the state pursue nationalist policies that denigrated ethnosectarianism and had enough power to impose its will on fissiparous sub-state groups. The answer to the question of whether Iraq will unravel need not be limited to the expectation of Iraq's total demise as a sovereign member of the global community. It does not necessarily anticipate its dismemberment into two or more independent parts. But we could ask the question of whether there will be an Iraq that would resemble the country from its inception in 1921 until the demise of the Saddamist regime in 2003 - a political entity brought and kept together by a central government that had the capacity to impose law and order, subdue sub-state fissiparous tendencies, and control economic activity in the land. The concern over Iraqi unity relates to the seeming gradual eclipse of a national Iraqi identity by sub-state, ethnosectarian identities. But that is hardly a unique or even contemporary phenomenon. Multiple identities and loyalties are as old as Iraqi history. After all, Iraq was patched together into a monarchy by the British in 1921 from three disparate provinces of the defunct Ottoman Empire. Divisions were so deep that when it came to choosing a ruler for the new state, the British realized that no local candidate would command the support of the whole population. 1 While the British decision to choose Prince Faysal of Hejaz to be Iraq's first monarch was of course multifaceted, there can be little doubt that ethnosectarian divisions in the infant state constituted one important factor. Twelve years into his reign, King Faysal would still lament the yawning dislocations in his realm. Iraq is one of those countries that lack religious, communal, and cultural unity, and as such it is divided upon itself; its power dispersed The Arab Sunni government rules over a Kurdish population, the bulk of which is ignorant, that is led by people with personal ambitions who use the [Kurds'] ethnic difference to advocate secession. [The government also rules over] an uneducated Shi'ite majority that shares the same ethnicity with the government, but which was persecuted by Turkish (Sunni) rule that [divided] the Arab population between the two sects. [This led] to the perception, which I have heard thousands of times, that taxes and death are the Shi'ites' lot in life, while public positions are reserved for the Sunnis In addition, there is the tribal mindset, plus the influence exercised by the shaykhs over the tribesmen, and the fear that [this influence] would wane in the face of enhanced governmental authority... 2 STATE POLICIES The difference between 1933 and 2003 and after was not so much in the ethnic- sectarian-tribal structure of society, but in the policies adopted by the governing elites, as well as the perceptions of these policies by the population. Regardless of the country's fissures, which in fact were deeper in the first decade of statehood than what had pertained in the post-2003 era, Faysal's government was wholeheartedly committed to the ideal of a national state, and worked to subsume communal identities within an overarching Iraqi identity. The man who spearheaded the undertaking was Faysal's protege, Sati' al-Husri, who was Iraq's Director General of Education. 3 From that position Husri and a group of committed disciples exerted profound influence on the educational and cultural orientations of the country, particularly in its crucial formative years. They disseminated their views on nation-building through purposeful educational policy, such as secularizing both the school and college curriculum, and imbuing them with nationalist ideas. …