James Dorsey 
Senior fellow, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies

Re-Configuring the Middle East: IS and Changing Demographics

Posted: 07/08/2015 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-dorsey/re-configuring-the-middle_b_7750698.html

The Syrian civil war and Iraqi sectarian conflicts involving Islamic State (IS) have had far-reaching consequences for the demographics across the region. Once a relatively ethnically homogeneous autonomous region, Iraqi Kurdistan has seen its demography change radically as large numbers of Arab refugees pour into what was once an independent Kurdish state-in-waiting. The influx of refugees fleeing areas of Iraq controlled by IS and fighting across the country, has pitted the Iraqi military and Shia militias against the jihadists.
As a result, it is in Kurdistan where the impact of IS on borders and demographics is likely to have the most immediate and far-reaching consequences. That is all the more true given that neither Syria nor Iraq are likely to remain the nation states that they were since achieving independence.