Would Iraq be better off split in three?

Here's an idea that came to me. It may not be worth a darn, but here goes.

Would Iraq be better off if we were to leave immediately and have the UN come in and divide the land up among the Sunnis, Shia and Kurds? Three sects, three different countries, and they could run them the way they want to instead of how Bush wants to.

That would be simpler and lead to less bloodshed than a civil war with each group trying to take the whole country.

I don't know. What do y'all think?

would ally with Iran?

Like Pakistan, Iraq WOULD be better off in the long term if its people were let to divide it into more natural barriers.

Basically a greater Iran, Kurdistan and some sort of Sunni enclave.


Indeed...

Probably, and I think the Kurds would even go along with it. But the Sunnis and the Shia are going to fight like bloody hell over who got what, and how much oil was underneath everyone's dirt pile.

before the British drew up the country of Iraq?

We've taken their place. Later, someone else will take our place.

Iraq WAS a united nation before we invaded it.

All Iraqis need to benefit from Iraq's resources. That's one reason it should not be divided.
Another reason it should not be split into three countries is, in so doing, an environment of conflict is created. Not a good thing for Iraqis.
Thirdly, Iraqis don't want the U.S.A. dividing its nation up.

So, that's MHO.

are mixed together in some places, such as in Baghdad. Another problem is that the petroleum is not distributed among all three regions.

knows that the fundamental mechanism of social organization is not a multi-ethnic nation-state (the modern European model), nor even a unitary-ethnic nation-state. From what I've studied, Arab social organization has historically (pre-19th century) been based around "tribal" ties. The nation-state model that has been super-imposed on the Arab world is really a 19th-century European imperialist model (mostly British, but with some French, Belgian and German influences).

That said, I don't know how to fix Iraq, or whether it can be fixed. I think John Murtha is right, that the people who live there will have to sort it out for themselves, perhaps with a violent civil war, perhaps otherwise.

except for the damn petroleum.

a while before that is done. My gut feeling is that over half of the Iraqi people will be killed before this is over. :-(

they would happily 'cleanse' it of ethic groups which differ from their own. For all the squawking in the Middle East against the US and Israel -some of it justified, some not- it was European colonial powers which are largely responsible for the haphazard borders which cut across ethnic areas- and left some groups (like the Kurds) without any state at all. Britain & France alone f---ed up parts of the Middle East and virtually all of Africa in this way.

entirely w/o respect to the Ottomon province boundaries. Right then and there. By ethnicity and religion.

They should have established a chunk of territory for Israel at the same time.

Hell--but not all hell--would have broken loose. None of the states would have been strong enough to have done much about it, they'd have been dealing with their own immigration problems. Because none of the boundaries would have been "clean", they'd have all required some sort of population adjustment. Europe had lots of such adjustments when they finally set their current boundaries--Slovenes, Poles, Germans, Italians, French all scooting and scurrying to get into "their" countries or territories. The boundaries are still a bit messy, and where they weren't accompanied by population movements they were usually accompanied by nearly forced assimiliation (I'm thinking Slovaks in Hungary, Sorbs in Germany, various and sundry in Spain).

Even as it was there were still population movements in the ME when the boundaries were set in stone.

The Ottomans set up the ME for ethnic and sectarian warfare, and Europe ratified their set up. Idiots and fools. And now we're more or less stuck with a peanut gallery of 190 morons requiring that the decisions of idiots and fools be respected.

That's just my opinion.

Did the India/Pakistan situation improve when they were split up? They still fight over Kashmir and other sore spots. Did Yugoslavia improve when it split up? The Balkans might survive thanks to the intervention of NATO, but it was a mess. Did the middle east improve when the state of Israel was carved out?

Iraq is a much worse situation than any of the previous examples. First, you can divide the land, but the Sunni live on land with little oil. They are not going to EVER give up their claim to the oil. That's a guarantee of future war.

Second the Kurds, if they get a separate state, will be a major threat to Turkey and Iran. Turkey will not allow an independent Kurdish state to last long. They have serious problems with the Turkish Kurds who want their own independent area carved out of Turkey. There will be war if a separate Kurdish state is split from Iraq.

Third, there are no areas that are solely inhabited by one of the major groups. There would have to be widespread uprooting of populations. There would be ethnic cleansing on a massive scale.

Finally, what about the minority ethnic groups like the Turkmen? They would be in serious jeopardy as none of the three other groups would want them around.

There are other reasons why a partition would be a terrible idea, but these should be enough to convince you.

Just a shot in the dark, as I'm not too up on the details of the Iraqi constitution, but off the top of my head -- what about dividing Iraq into 3 or 6 or however many states with equal representation - similar to our system - and nationalizing the control of their resources (oil) so no factions have to fight over it?

A reasonable proposal - but the Sunnis have the particular problem of seeing themselves as the naturally dominant party. They think they're in the majority, when in reality seem to be about 20% of the Muslim population. So they are inclined to see a fair distribution as being inherently unfair to them.

Heightening this problem is that we, the U.S., actually like the Sunnis better than the Shiites - but the Sunnis are the ones being unreasonable.

The Kurds, on the other hand, should just be allowed to go off in their own corner - but that angers Turkey, who have too much of a Kurd population who would want to join them.

If it didn't smack of arrogance, I might even suggest a two house parliment, one based on population and another based on statehood, much like the House and the Senate. It's not perfect, sure. But it's a frig of a lot better than a civil war.

Whatever the end result--the Iraqis must have the majority vote in any boundary decisions. The last century showed what can happen when old white men decide to cut up the world to suit themselves.

That was the original way there, after all. :P

Seriously, there is no good solution there. At best, there might be a workable solution, but I doubt chopping the coutry up would work. Adding new borders would only create more borders for the resultant countries to fight over.

there are problems.

As has been pointed out several times, Iraq as we know it today was stitched together out of three different Ottoman provinces by the British. It happened after World War I, when the allies needed to parcel out various chunks of Asia into spheres of influence with defensible boundaries. There's a book I like a lot that discusses these issues, entitled A Peace to End All Peace, by a guy named (I think) David Fromkin. All the allies made stupid mistakes, largely occasioned by the fact that the treaty formally ending the war and prescribing the "new world order" wasn't written until several years after the shooting ended, enough time for every allied government to be voted out of office and replaced by the rival party with a completely different agenda.

As a result, Iraq under Saddam was stable only because Saddam was sufficiently ruthless, up to and including willing to gas his own people (who actually weren't his own people but ethnic rivals who became political enemies). So even under the best of circumstances, a "liberated" Iraq would kinda look like Yugoslavia after Tito, a center that could not possibly hold. Would the friction escalate to real ethnic cleansing? Conversely, what do we think is happening now?

There are other problems too. Nearby states with sizeable Kurdish populations would hate to see an independent Kurdistan of any flavor, and Turkey in particular might mobilize forces to prevent it. Plus you have to remember where the oil is: a big field under Iraqi Kurdistan, and a big field in the Shi'a territory in the South, but the Sunni provinces around baghdad and Tikrit and north, south, east and west of that somewhat (quoth Rummy) ain't got shit. Which doesn't automatically mean that Iraqi Sunnistan wouldn't be viable, but the best they could hope for would be a net exporter of advanced technology amidst a bunch of agrarian nomads with oil-- kinda like Israel, albeit with less hostile neighbors... hopefully.

This is something that I've been saying for years. A lot of African and Middle Eastern countries have crap borders drawn by colonial powers. Some ethnic groups were split into several countries, while others were thrown together in the same country.

Now, having different ethnic groups in the same country isn't bad...just look at the US. But people in the US mostly speak the same language, and tolerate one another's personal beliefs. This doesn't happen 'over there.'

will be good for Iraq

I think there is a reasonable likelihood that Iraq will eventually split in three. It also may split in two, with the Kurdish north separating and the majority Shia taking their historical turn dominating the minority Sunnis for a time.

they said that if the kurds got their own land than they would have to invade and they arent playing coy here with htis one. they have their own kurd community that is in unrest and they are not going to have a kurd country back up along their board to help incite their kurds.....

also that would give the kurds and the shiite in the south power of the oil leaving sunni, middle of country without, that wont fly.

not to mention shiite of the south going with iran

They ain't got no oil in their region.

You can bet partition will lead to lots of Sunni terrorism and violence percolating into the Kurdish and Shi'ah enclaves.

There is likely no solution for Iraq. None. Sometimes you can create a problem that cannot be solved, and I believe that's what we did.

nationalize the oil companies, make a secular government
with a castro-type president.
encourage women's rights; emphasis on feeding people and taking
care of basic human needs

I realize there is little to no chance of this happening. Although
there is a communist party in iraq - or something akin to it:

http://www.equalityiniraq.com/english.htm

I wish them well - I even donated $ to them. Probably put me on
the nsa wiretapping list doing it but I don't care.