Splitting Iraq In Three
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in War
Apparently that’s one idea that’s being floated around by James Baker for a post-election solution for the war-torn country.
The the Times Online:
AN independent commission set up by Congress with the approval of President George W Bush may recommend carving up Iraq into three highly autonomous regions, according to well informed sources.The Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by James Baker, the former US secretary of state, is preparing to report after next month’s congressional elections amid signs that sectarian violence and attacks on coalition forces are spiralling out of control. The conflict is claiming the lives of 100 civilians a day and bombings have reached record levels.
The Baker commission has grown increasingly interested in the idea of splitting the Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurdish regions of Iraq as the only alternative to what Baker calls “cutting and running� or “staying the course�.
I agree. This appears to be the only feasible alternative since it we simply don’t have the number of troops to adequately secure the country. And this would hopefully quell any chance of civil war if we give each faction their own space.
And here’s the answer to the “what will they do with the oil revenues?” question:
His group will not advise “partition�, but is believed to favour a division of the country that will devolve power and security to the regions, leaving a skeletal national government in Baghdad in charge of foreign affairs, border protection and the distribution of oil revenue.
If it’s doable, let’s do it. And then, let’s get the hell out of there.
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October 8th, 2006 at 8:45 am
It has probably come to this, but let’s not pretend this is anything short of a disaster. We’ll have a Sharia-based Shiite state allied with Iran, a radicalized Sunni state and the Kurds who may well provoke a war with Turkey.
Nothing about this will be easy, nothing about this guarantees even the most minimal civil liberty, and nothing guarantees we won’t end up with endless strife between Sunni and Shia Iraq.
October 8th, 2006 at 10:16 am
More of a disaster than the current colonial-era borders? I’ve often wondered why we haven’t heard more from the bearded-academic class on this subject. Colonialism is the usually whipping boy for all third-world evils — but its politically more convenient to blame Bush in this case. And yes, divide it into three will create, at least initially, power shifts and geopolitical handringing. The Turks will obviously not be happy with an independent Kurdistan given there own Kurdish issues.
October 8th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
We shouldn’t blame Bush and Blair for the current chaos in Iraq since it isn’t their fault that Iraqi people aren’t united. In fact we should blame the colonial powers who created Iraq (a name for a drawn border on map but no nation on the ground) to be the melting point of all the storms coming from Turks, Persians and Arabs. The sooner Iraq dismantles the better Iraqis would feel.
October 8th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
One of the biggest problems I see is that the Sunnis’ land has more or less no oil, and why should the Kurds and Shi’ites who hate them give them oil revenue from THEIR oil? Especially since they’d probably assume the Sunnis would use it to buy weapons to attack them with (and probably rightly so).
That plus of course many areas are a mix of ethnicities, so a perfect split would be extremely difficult logistically – one of the main reasons why the Kurdish region is more or less peaceful is because it’s almost entirely just Kurds.
October 8th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
I say it again – who did not see this as an outcome, a probable outcome?
October 8th, 2006 at 7:59 pm
The Bush administration has dragged out this solution for years because their friends are making BILLIONS there as long as we run the ship. And because they fear irritating the Turks almost as much as Isreal.
This split will be the ultimate and logical outcome. The Sunnis had control of the oil for decades and still screwed the Shia and Kurds.
In 1946 Ho Chi Min came to Truman to ask for Vietnamese control of their country. Truman gave it back to the French because politicians lacked the vision to see that colonialism was dead.
Shoot Saddam and leave.
October 8th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
I just don’t think it’s going to work. The Kurds up north want to have permanent status up there, and the Turks will never agree to that. The Shiites and the Sunni’s really don’t want to live to each other. Meanwhile, more Americans and Iraqi’s are dying everyday in a hellhole we had no business being in, in the first place. Thanks George!!!
October 9th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
Partition into three countries or even highly autonomous areas would be a deeply complex undertaking. Despite what one commonly reads, Iraq is not so easily divided into geographic and ethno-religious zones. The situation–due to a variety of historical and other factors, not least of which is consecutive waves of rural-urban migration historical waves of rural-urban migratio n over several decades in the 20th century. In short, there is more heterogeneity and dispersement than is popularly depicted in the general media. A Kurdish state might seem to be the easiest to put together, but even that has immense complexity, in part due to the reasons other commenters have touched upon here.
To be just a little bit fair to Turkey, remember that when the British set up Iraq (remember, it was an artificial country, in a sense, from the start), there was a protracted diplomatic battle over whether Mosul and environs, where a significant number of Turkmen lived, properly should be retained by Turkey. The Brits got their way, but ever since, Turkey has maintained an interest, which, while I’m not praising all its expression, is at least understandable. Those who speak lightly (and I’m not saying anyone in particular is, here) of the relationship of the Iraqi Kurds and those in Turkey appear, at least to me, underinformed about the history and cultural etc. intertwinings in the region.
None of this should be taken as an apology for the failures of Rumsfeld (whom, in what is old news, I think should have resigned long ago–even while I’m not sure it would make as much of difference as people think because of a larger philosophy/attitude embedded within this administration), the old PA etc. etc. etc. But the failures of erstwhile previous approaches does not necessarily make the partition option a better, more workable one on its own merits. And I’m also not saying there are no merits to the idea, just that it’s far from an easy undertaking and may end up being as much of a rat’s nest, just in a different way.