Splitting Iraq In Three
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in The War On Terrorism, The World, WarJoe Biden has some interesting ideas about what to do with Iraq.
And as the title suggests, maybe the only way to ease sectarian violence is to have everybody go to their respective corners…for good.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 2nd, 2006 and is filed under The War On Terrorism, The World, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 2nd, 2006 at 10:37 am
What is president Bush supposed to do? Force the newly elected parliament to dissolve and draw up borders himself? Biden mentions how the Iraqi constitution allows for some federal autonomy already. Its up to the Iraqi people now to decide how far it will go.
May 2nd, 2006 at 11:38 am
My opinion is that ultimately, this is exactly what will happen. But it won’t be because the United States government thought it was a good idea. And certainly not because any of our allies thought it was a good idea — least of all, Turkey. If it happens, it’ll be because the Iraqis faught a bloody civil war and that was how the dust settled. Although, honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Kurds get screwed again and we end up with only two pieces instead of three.
May 2nd, 2006 at 12:35 pm
Agreed Bob. I think this is what will ultimately happen too, but given how oil-poor some regions are, I think the other regions will tell them to go sit-and-spin, and civil war will ensue. And if you have civil war, that means that somebody will win, take over the other country and we’ll be back in a similar situation we were in with Saddam.
May 2nd, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Iraq: Partitioning vs Civil war
Here’s a little piece in the WaPoo about the pros of partitioning Iraq into 3 countries or allowing a civil war:
Merits of Partitioning Iraq or Allowing Civil War Weighed
As the U.S. military struggles against persistent sectarian violence in Ir…
May 3rd, 2006 at 9:55 am
We won’t see Iraq split up because the Sunni insurgents who instigate many of the problems are fighting to prevent such a split up. All of the oil wealth is in the southern Shiite region, or the northern Kurdish region. Any further motion Iraq makes towards a federalist system means less oil wealth for Sunnis. If Iraq were to split up, the Sunni insurgents would recieve more support from their sect to continue the violence against the Iraqi governement and Shiites.
Iraq needs to become less of a federal country for the violence to end and the Sunnis brought into the government.
May 3rd, 2006 at 1:20 pm
You have to have some degree of a federal country to this. Look at the way things are headed now. Let’s not pretend that the Bush administration did not put a strong push to a unified central gov’t. The problem is that the minority Sunnis controlled the majority Shiites in a rather horrible manner. If there is not some sovereignty in this system for the different factions, you’ll have the majority treating the minority in a horrible manner. And you thought Saddam was a despot; wait to see the kind of strong leader that the Shiites will be able to produce. The real question now is that since we have created a sovereign nation, and are “supposedly” standing back (unless of course they are doing something we don’t like or think it isn’t moving fast enough, then we send in Rummy and Condi) what will this new nation produce? Will We really approve? I doubt it, then will we be willing to commit our troops and money? Take away that, and we will see all hell break lose. So, we have to admit that this whole affair is screwed given the way it was managed, and decide the tough questions. Do we maintain the status quo and let things remain so messed up, or do we wash our hands of it, or do we do what we should have done in the first place and put more troops in, enough to actually offer security to every single region, city, town and individual in Iraq. Most people are just pretending that that’s what we’re doing now, but it just is not so, and the Administration has its withdrawal plan set, and are slowly administering it. The thing is that their going to take the piece of shit that they created, mold it into a cow, slap a blue ribbon on it and call it the pride of the fair. That doesn’t make it less of a pile of shit, and it will be the Iraqi’s that will be blamed when they step in it. So Maybe we should just Split the country up, then we can make the choice to step in from the outside should the Sunni’s attack their sovereign neighbor Shiitistan or Kurdistan, or not. And God help Kurdistan if they go after Turkey, but what do we do with Turkey when they go after Kurdistan? No easy answer, but if we think it’s a united Iraq, then we need to commit the troops now before it is too late, which was probably about a year ago, or when Bush landed on the air craft carrier with his crotch bulging and a sign stating mission accomplished.