However, Iraq is no more phony than a great many other countries: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, South Africa.
In much of the world, ethnic/linguistic groupings have little to do with where political boundaries are drawn.
Will enough Iraqis think of themselves as Iraqis before thinking of themselves as Sunnit, Shi'ites or Kurds?
The same was true in Europe not so long ago... Italians thought of themselves as Neopolitans, Sicilians, Venetians or Florentines until Garibaldi... and do so even today to some extent.
Bismarck came up with the slogan "Deutschland Uber Alles", not as a way of asserting German superiority, but as a way to get Germans to think of themselves as Germans, and not Hessians, Bavarians, etc.