Should Iraq be partitioned?

[quaoar]

It's my opinion that Iraq is the Yugoslavia of the Middle East -- a nation of very different peoples that was artifically created and held together by brute force.

Iraq is not going to become a stable democracy. It will fly apart. The insurgency is being driven not just by our occupation but also by Sunni fears of living in a Shiite-dominated state. In any fair election, the Shiites will control the government and the Sunnis fear payback for the decades of repression they practiced.

The Kurds have run their own affairs for the last 12 years and are not inclined to give that up for the glory of Greater Iraq. They have kept their own militias and are not about to disarm. The Kurds will be willing to accept for now a confederation status that gives them autonomy, but even that won't last. The Kurds will pick the right moment to bolt and then declare their independence. Iraq is too weak to stop it and Turkey will have to think hard before intervening for fear of setting off a wider Kurdish rebellion throughout eastern Turkey.

So the question is -- should we convene an international conference for the purpose of dividing Iraq into two or perhaps three nations?

[mcscajun]

1. Seems to me we have no business dividing Iraq any more than the Brits

had any business cobbling it together.

Yugoslavia, another 'cobbled' country held together by a strongman, divided itself along ethic lines when its time came.

Perhaps if we left Iraq to make its own future, it might do likewise.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Maybe. But, how about the USA first?

Some of the same problems exist here, and we sure as hell pose more of a threat to the world than Iraq does.

[0007]

8. I concur. How can we divide something up when It isn't ours.

Perhaps we should divide the United States and see if the Iraqis would agree?

[KlatooBNikto]

11. Even raising this question shows an arrogant imperialistic mindset

that I didn't suspect existed among DUers.

[0007]

14. I know what ya mean!

[karlrschneider]

16. I'm not so sure it's imperialist as much as considering one possible

practical reality...but it would be a chore of monumental proportions given the disparity of petroleum resources between any conceivable partition 'arrangement' based simply on ethnicity, and I can't imagine any other way to approach it.

[quaoar]

32. Try growing up and living in the real world

We are up to our eyeballs in Iraqi quicksand and we have to find the best solution that offers peace and stability. Partition is one option.

Obviously, the better option would have been not to invade in the first place, but that's water under the bridge at this point.

[Chipper Chat]

19. I dont know why americans dismiss the idea of USA secession

by groups of states. The red states can become "Jesusland" as suggested. The "christians" would be more than happy to have the "liberal states" expelled. No more need for elections-just let Oral Roberts University become their new capitol. Bush can be pResident forever and appoint Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson to run their country. No more need for courts. Let church councils decide punishment and make new laws. A copy of the Bible can be placed in every outhouse. Church attendance will be mandatory. And no more gays -whoopee!
California, Oregon, Washington State, Hawaii, and Nevada can become "Pacifica." (Ahnold can still be governor and the new country will retain some of its conservatives).
The northeast from Minnesota to Maryland/DC can become "New America" with the freedoms we used to have reinstated or enacted -especially for minorities. No more Scalia & Thomas types on the courts! Hillary-dust off that health-care plan! Of course, we would have to "buy" the DC govt buildings from the "old usa."
Florida could do it's own thing (I dont think they want to be part of Jesusland). The central-state fundies could move to Georgia! Besides - I still would want to vacation on those sandy beaches!
Imagine living again in a progressive country free from "war-presidents" and corporate carpetbaggers.

[annabanana]

29. We are not a homeland since "time out of mind" for

anyone except the native americans.... no corollary here.

[illflem]

3. Believe it or not the Pentagon has suggested partitioning Iraq

Big problem is Shiite south would likely become part of boogieman Iran and the Kurd north would make Turkey's Kurd population want to splinter off, something Turkey doesn't want.
Beside this I feel it partitioning Iraq will be the only way to avoid years of civil war but heck what do I know, it seems too simple.

[Disturbed]

4. Feb, 1, 2005

We will know more about the future of Iraq on that day.

If the U.S. backed Interim Govt. group wins then the Insurgency will hammer even more so than they previously have been doing. The U.S. Govt. will declare that the Occupation is over yet will remain in strong force claiming that the the U.S. troops are defending the Democratic Republic of Iraq. The blood will flow.

If the al Sistani group, which has al Sadr and Achmed Chalbi in it, wins, they will most likely request that the U.S. vacate their country. Question is: Would the U.S honor that request?

[Selatius]

10. Iraqi Shi'ites are friends with but not under Iranian Shi'ites

They operate as two different entities. Cultural/political differences should be noted. For one, the Shi'ites in Iran are Persian and speak Farsi. Iraqi Shi'ites are Arab and speak Arabic. Also, for Iran to take over the Shi'ite south, it would require that homegrown elements like Al Sistani be removed in order to create the necessary power vacuum for them to move in.

[sandnsea]

5. Should have done the elections differently

We never should have tried to have one central rule in Iraq. We should have been encouraging local and regional elections from day one. Once cities and regions had control over their own economies and governments, they would have seen that what binds them as a country is greater than what divides them. But Bush doesn't know a fucking thing about it, especially when the main thing that binds them is oil revenues and Bush is trying to rip that out from under them anyway.

[Flammable Materials]

6. My Kurdish barber says that diving the country is the only solution.

He believes that if there is going to be a vote this year, the vote should be first whether Iraq should remain one country or should divide into three parts.

[annabanana]

30. I expect many Kurds agree with him...

They've been semi-autonomous for awhile.

[Bridget Burke]

7. If that is what the Iraqis choose.

But let's not have any non-Iraqis suggest the divisions. Fuck imperialism.

[Minstrel Boy]

9. Partition of Iraq is a long-standing goal of the Likudniks,

so should it surprise us this is on the table while the country is occupied?

Israeli journalist Oded Yinon, writing in 1982:

The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel's primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target.... Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria.... Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi'ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north.

Remember, what looks to us like a disaster is, to the neo-conservative lobby, a necessary transitional stage to the redrawing of the map of the Middle East.

Here's Robert Fisk, last March 3rd:

Odd, isn't it? There never has been a civil war in Iraq. I have never heard a single word of animosity between Sunnis and Shias in Iraq.

Al-Qa'ida has never uttered a threat against Shias - even though al-Qa'ida is a Sunni-only organisation. Yet for weeks, the American occupation authorities have been warning us about civil war, have even produced a letter said to have been written by an al-Qa'ida operative, advocating a Sunni-Shia conflict. Normally sane journalists have enthusiastically taken up this theme. Civil war.

...

I think of the French OAS in Algeria in 1962, setting off bombs among France's Muslim Algerian community. I recall the desperate efforts of the French authorities to set Algerian Muslim against Algerian Muslim which led to half a million dead souls.

...

We are entering a dark and sinister period of Iraqi history. But an occupation authority which should regard civil war as the last prospect it ever wants to contemplate, keeps shouting "civil war" in our ears and I worry about that. Especially when the bombs make it real.

It's positively Bushian to keep talking up civil war. Who would benefit from it more? It is the forces of occupation and the neoconservative ideologues who keep bleating about it. Why? Because having conquered Iraq, they want an excuse to divide it. A divided, sectarian Iraq is easier to administer as puppet, vassal states, and it would ensure that Iraq would never again be an independent economic and military power.

[KlatooBNikto]

15. Thanks, MB. Your post has brought into stark relief why there was a War on

Iraq in the first place.

[norml]

12. I posted this solution months ago. Kurdistan for the Kurds!

Sunni Triangle for the Sunni! The Shiite South for the Shiia! This would prevent any one group from trying to dominate another. This would prevent many years of civil war. Iraq shouldn't be held together by force any more than Yugoslavia should have been held together by force.

[KlatooBNikto]

13. I have a better solution.Let us get our troops out of there first. Let

the Iraqi people decide what they want after we leave. All the dire warnings of chaos in Vietnam failed to materialize after we left.Vietnam is one nation as it always was until we went in there after the French and refused to honor a pledge to hold free elections that would have ensured a victory for Ho Chi Minh.

It is our arrogance that poor people do not know what is best for them and we have to be their guardians that amkes for chaos.When left to themselves people are far wiser than our think tank mavens give them credit for. Closer to home the Venezuelan people did not have that much difficulty deciding that Chavez offered them a better deal than the oligarchs.

[Selatius]

17. Vietnam was screwed from both sides

The government in Hanoi operated more as an oligarchy like China than as a representative democracy, and it's still true today. Whoever won at the end, the people lost as far as freedom is concerned.

[KlatooBNikto]

18. At least they are not getting slaughtered by bombs raining down on them

from B-52s.

[Disturbed]

20. Is it Amerika's country or theirs?

Who does Iraq belong to?

[Selatius]

22. True

But because of outside meddling by the likes of the French, the Chinese, the Americans, and the Russians, the choice became one of order under tyranny or continued mass destruction and death, and the answer became obvious to many.

It was arrogance and the lust for power and control that led to that episode, not only on America's part but on others as well, and it's apparently the same lust and arrogance that has led us into another meatgrinder in a far away place called Iraq. Our so-called leaders have lost everything learned in Vietnam, and now we're going back to school the hard way.

[Benson]

21. Partition now, or its civil war the moment we leave (NT)

[KlatooBNikto]

24. Read Mistrel Boy's post above.Civil War is not a possibility according

to Robert Fisk.It is another bogeyman thrown in by us to keep our occupation going.

[quaoar]

33. Oh? Is that right?

Seems Mr. Fisk has had a change of heart about things in Iraq since he opined in March that civil war is a fantasy:

Indeed, watching any Western television station in Baghdad these days is like tuning in to Planet Mars. Doesn't Blair realise that Iraq is about to implode? Doesn't Bush realise this?

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=5981

[Minstrel Boy]

34. What Fisk details, consistently, is a war of liberation, not a civil war.

He has always said the invasion would lead to calamity, and that the occupation would breed a war of liberation.

Your quote in context:

Indeed, watching any Western television station in Baghdad these days is like tuning in to Planet Mars. Doesn't Blair realise that Iraq is about to implode? Doesn't Bush realise this? The American-appointed "government" controls only parts of Baghdad - and even there its ministers and civil servants are car-bombed and assassinated. Baquba, Samara, Kut, Mahmoudiya, Hilla, Fallujah, Ramadi, all are outside government authority. Iyad Allawi, the "Prime Minister," is little more than mayor of Baghdad. "Some journalists," Blair announces, "almost want there to be a disaster in Iraq." He doesn't get it. The disaster exists now.

He's not describing sectarian violence. He's talking about striking at the occupiers and their puppets.

[quaoar]

35. Oh really? How about this article?

http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk09022003.html

A Nation On the Brink of Civil War
By ROBERT FISK
The Independent

< snip >

For what is happening, in the Sunni heartland around Baghdad and now in the burgeoning Shia nation to the south, is not just the back-draft of an invasion or even a growing guerrilla war against occupation. It is the start of a civil war in Iraq that will consume the entire nation if its new rulers do not abandon their neo-conservative fantasies and implore the world to share the future of the country with them.

[Minstrel Boy]

37. Fisk wrote that in Sept 2003. Here he is in March 2004:

All This Talk of Civil War, Now This
By ROBERT FISK
The Independent

Odd, isn't it? There never has been a civil war in Iraq. I have never heard a single word of animosity between Sunnis and Shias in Iraq.

...

I think of the French OAS in Algeria in 1962, setting off bombs among France's Muslim Algerian community. I recall the desperate efforts of the French authorities to set Algerian Muslim against Algerian Muslim which led to half a million dead souls.

And I'm afraid I also think of Ireland and the bombings in Dublin and Monaghan in 1974, which, as the years go by, appear to have an ever closer link, via Protestant "loyalist" paramilitaries, to elements of British military security.

...

It's not that I believe al-Qa'ida incapable of such a bloodbath. But I ask myself why the Americans are rubbing this Sunni-Shia thing so hard. Let's turn the glass round the other way. If a violent Sunni movement wished to evict the Americans from Iraq - and there is indeed a resistance movement fighting very cruelly to do just that - why would it want to turn the Shia population of Iraq, 60 per cent of Iraqis, against them? The last thing such a resistance would want is to have the majority of Iraqis against it.

http://www.counterpunch.org/fisk03022004.html

[quaoar]

38. So then, according to Fisk...

In September 2003, the nation is on the brink of civil war, but by March the very idea of civil war is a fantasy?

LOL

[Minstrel Boy]

39. The way I read it, his understanding of the game the US plays

became more nuanced, the more he saw it played.

That is, that the drums of civil war are beaten by the occupying forces.

[quaoar]

40. And I guess Hans Blix was in on it too

This is from April 2004

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1083862.htm

Iraq on verge of civil war: Blix
Iraq is on the verge of civil war, according to former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix.

"The country is on the verge of civil war today," Dr Blix told Le Parisian.

"The majority of Iraqis are certainly happy to be rid of Saddam Hussein, but they are all against the American occupation, which is resented as a humiliation."

[Minstrel Boy]

41. yeah, whatever.

Your conception of "civil war" is Sunni-Shia. Blix's comments, even in your quote, suggest he's speaking of a "civil war" which pits Iraqis against their countrymen who serve the interests of the occupiers.

But hey, full steam ahead on carving up another country. Enjoy playing God much?

[quaoar]

42. Civil war is civil war

Doesn't matter much to the dead whether they died over slavery or preservation of the Union.

Playing God? Far from it.

The best solution would have been not to invade at all. But the Pottery Barn Rule (yeah, I know, PB doesn't really have a rule like that) is in effect: We broke it, we own it.

Doesn't make any difference that we should have just left the place alone. We are there now and we have to find a way to get out without triggering a civil war, general chaos or some other such calamity. We now have that responsibility whether we want it or not.

Too much shit has hit the fan at this point for elections to solve anything. The place is barely controlled chaos. The UN refuses to even send in election monitors because it's so dangerous. They are going to monitor the election from Jordan, if you can believe that.

I won't suggest that partition is a magic solution. There are dangers. In fact, American interests would probably suffer under partition. Bush regime interests would be best served by a compliant Iraqi central government that keeps the place under control with repression that doesn't attract too much attention. Two or three governments creates problems, like a Shiite south linking up with Iran or Sunnis driving Shiite residents of Baghdad out of the city.

There isn't a perfect solution. The idea is to find the one that has the best chance of avoiding further bloodshed and getting our troops home.

[Minstrel Boy]

43. Iraq isn't Pottery Barn.

I don't believe "we broke it, we own it" is a statute of international law.

[quaoar]

44. Actually, it is a tenet of international law

That occupiers have responsibilities to maintain order.

The so-called Pottery Barn Rule was Colin Powell's way of warning Bush that if he invaded Iraq, the security of the country was going to be our responsibility. Powell probably used the phrase "Pottery Barn Rule" because he knew he'd have to keep it simple enough for Bush to understand it.

Regardless of how reckless and stupid the war is, we do have the responsibility not to leave the place in chaos.

By your responses I would assume you think we should withdraw immediately and that Iraqis will magically come together as brothers and work everything out. I assume this because you haven't really said. You've just quoted someone who trashed the idea of civil war six months after saying it was imminent.

If you have some of substance to say on the subject of what should be done in Iraq, I'm all ears.

[Minstrel Boy]

51. International law also has something to say

about wars of aggression.

Maintaining order is not Bremer's "100 Orders," or a puppet regime, or 14 permanent bases, or dividing the country into Bantustans. The US occupation is, in fact, sewing chaos.

Did you also support the Soviet presence in Afghanistan because the Russians had a responsibility to "maintain order"?

As for "If you have some of substance to say on the subject of what should be done in Iraq, I'm all ears," then prick 'em up for Naomi Klein:

So let's be absolutely clear: the US, having broken Iraq, is not in the process of fixing it. It is merely continuing to break the country and its people by other means, using not only F-16s and Bradleys, but now the less flashy weaponry of WTO and IMF conditions, followed by elections designed to transfer as little power to Iraqis as possible. This is what Argentinian writer Rodolfo Walsh, writing before his assassination in 1977 by the military junta, described as "planned misery". And the longer the US stays in Iraq, the more misery it will plan.

But if staying in Iraq is not the solution, neither are easy bumper-sticker calls to pull the troops out and spend the money on schools and hospitals at home. Yes, the troops must leave, but that can be only one plank of a credible and moral antiwar platform. What of Iraq's schools and hospitals - the ones that were supposed to be fixed by Bechtel but never were? Too often, antiwar forces have shied away from speaking about what Americans owe Iraq. Rarely is the word "compensation" spoken, let alone the more loaded "reparations".

Antiwar forces have also failed to offer concrete support for the political demands coming out of Iraq. For instance, when the Iraqi national assembly condemned the Paris Club deal for forcing the Iraqi people to pay Saddam's "odious" debts and robbing them of their economic sovereignty, the antiwar movement was virtually silent, save the dogged but undersupported Jubilee Iraq. And while US soldiers aren't protecting Iraqis from starvation, the food rations certainly are - so why isn't safeguarding this desperately needed programme one of our central demands?

The failure to develop a credible platform beyond "troops out" may be one reason the antiwar movement remains stalled, even as opposition to the war deepens. Because the Pottery Barn rulers do have a point: breaking a country should have consequences for the breakers. Owning the broken country should not be one of them, but how about paying for the repairs?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1379892,00.html

[Bridget Burke]

46. American interests would NOT suffer under partition.

That is, not under the kind of partition that would be "offered" to the Iraqi people. Looking back at the last century, various powers will keep their own best interests in mind as they draw lines on the map. Do you seriously believe that the position of oilfields will not be considered ahead of the best interests of the Iraqis?

Any decision for partition must come from the Iraqi people.

[quaoar]

48. I agree

that the Iraqis would have to approve it.

And deciding which town goes to which new nation would be political dynamite. There has been a good bit of mixing of communities in Iraq. What would be done with Sadr City in Baghdad? Would the Shiites want to stay there in the new Sunni nation or leave to go live in the Shiite nation? None of it would be easy.

And, the oilfields are all either in Kurdish territory or Shiite territory, so a new Sunni nation would be economically disadvantaged.

It wouldn't be easy. If it's done, though, it should be under the auspices of an international conference. Otherwise, decisions about who gets which province would be made by who in Iraq has the most guns.

[Bridget Burke]

45. Partition does not guarantee peace.

Look into those lines the Brits were so fond of drawing on the map as their Empire receded. Look at all the death & suffering that ensued afterwards.

Again--partition is up to the Iraqis. Not to any neo-colonial powers. Even the other countries in the area have their own interests at heart.

[moondust]

23. Would it get the oil profits to Texas any faster?

I assume Exxon has the final word.

[ckramer]

25. Should USA be partitioned?

[norml]

50. As long as I can move from my red state to a blue state first

I'm OK with that.

[Just Me]

26. No. n/t

[WillowTree]

27. Whether or not Iraq should be partitioned

is a decision that the Iraqis need to make. I would probably favor the idea if I was voting there, but I'm not and since it's their country now, it will have to be up to them to decide if they want to try to hold their country together and learn to coexist or partition. They should at least get that much out of all this after all they've been through.

[chieftain]

28. Frankly , I think an international conference

which partitions Iraq is the only way out of this mess . What we and the world cannot afford is a failed state in this area . The end result will not be very palatable to this country but all the alternatives are worse . It is hard to decide whether this gang of Bush thugs is more immoral or more incompetent . What a disaster and this poseur continues to strut through the ruins that he has made of American power and prestige .

[Bridget Burke]

47. Partitioning worked so well in Ireland!

Any "international conference" would be dominated by the USA. The interests of Iraq's neighors would come next.

The interests of the Iraqis would come last.

[chieftain]

49. But as you know ,

Ireland is not a country conjured up by Winston Churchhill but a nation with a long standing history. The partition there was to protect a planted ethnic group rather than an as a rational accommodation to diverse indigenous populations. Iraq as a country did not exist until it was thought to be in the interest of Britain .
The interests of the world would be served if a semblance of order could be restored to the region . The U.S.'s influence at the Conference and in Iraq's future would be significantly and appropriately reduced .

[okieinpain]

31. I just wonder how the sunni's and kurds are going to like living

under shiite rule.

[Doohickie]

36. Give the Kurds some level of autonomy

but keep them in Iraq.

[Taxloss]

52. No. Not a solution, and not possible. And a big mistake.

First, Sunni and Shi'a, although they are groups of shared ethnicity, culture and religious temperament, are not "nations" as the European understanding would have it. They do not have established boundaries and a culture of individual statehood, nor do they occupy clearly delineated areas, despite what the media might simplify to you. A partition would be every bit as bad as a civil war - think India and Pakistan, not Czechoslovakia.

Second, the regional implication would be awful. Turkey - NATO member, home of US air- and missile-bases and potential EU member - cannot countenance a hostile Kurd nation to its south. For all their mutual anatagonism, (Shi'a, Persian) Iran and (Wahabbi, Arab) Saudi Arabia value a mixed Iraq as a buffer area.

Third, there's a reason us Brits stitched Iraq together in the first place. Before we took over, Iraq had always been a colonial possession - since before Roman times. It had some, but little, experience of self-government (people who say otherwise tend to overestimate the extent to which Ottoman governors wished to exercise autonomy). This wasn't Lebanon, or Jordan, which had traditions of statehood. A smattering of microstates would be too weak and would destabilise the area; the same is true today.

Iraq's not a pretty political construct, but it can work. There are far more diverse, but successful, nations - think India, or China, or even the UK or USA.

[WMliberal]

53. Look at how Iraq was created in 1918 as part of the Sykes-Picot agreement

There was no Iraq until then. The British and French just drew a bunch of lines in the sand with no regard to culture, religion, or ethnicity when they created the political boundaries that make up the modern Middle East.
Just like with old Yugoslavia, there have been pathetic failures at attempts to manufacture a nationality; and just like old Yugoslavia, they failed.

The big problem is that if the lines are redrawn, how will it affect the surrounding countries?

A Kurdistan would cause unrest in Turkey and Iran. In fact, the Turkish military's oppression of this movement is one of the hangups of Turkey joining the EU.

What to do with the rest? Divide it in two, along religious lines? Keep it as one country; you'd have the Sunnis being a permanent minority.

All of these should have been considered BEFORE we went to war. Shit, I'm just a 22 year old with a fresh history degree and I've just given more consideration to what should be done to create a stable society there than *'s friends have.