Should Iraq be Partitioned ?

President Bush's position is that partition as a solution in Iraq is a "non-starter". Nevertheless, the idea of partition being part of the solution in Iraq is gaining momentum.



MRB:

BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO

Early on, as in a year ago, I said that if you seperated the fighting factions in Iraq and give them a certain amount of autonomy without the fanatical (and there is no other word for it) religious convictions of the three religio/politico groups in Iraq, that they might be able to get there own piece of turf in order and all would be well. La-de-dah. I even said as much a few days ago in the weekly gathering of our 3HM group. But I no longer see that as the best scenario.

I see two countries emerging, not three, and I don't think it will be a pretty picture. For all practical purposes the Kurdistanis are independent and operating as such as described by my colleague KJW. And, most importantly, they can be pretty self sufficient since they have oil production and good relations with Turkey and with the US. They have no desire to be associated with what is now the rest of Iraq. Other Arab countries have their collective eyes on them, say, Iran and Syria. But the larger, southern part of Iraq, is Suni and Shia and where all the battles are being fought and killing our men and women. These two groups hate one another, always have and always will. Exactly why the US thought we could change 2,ooo years of hatred in just a couple of years by the introducton of parliamentary democracy is beyond me. But we are there.

But now we leave. And withdraw all of our troops and go to Kurdistan where the borders NEED protection. It's defendable. Look at the map we've posted, it's about 1/6 the size of all of Iraq. They like us. Then, just allow the rest of Iraq to fight it out and "may the best faction win". This leaves us strategically open as to who we WANT to win. This, you see, would give the current administation the leeway to support the side that gives us what we really want. That's oil. How many of our 3HM readers thought it was terrorism we were fighting there?

We therefore win on all sides by this plan. We protect a small emerging ally, encourage an already emerging stability, possibly help it's alliance with Turkey, another ally. We have access to it's oil reserves. And, after a few years of monitoring the battles, without interference, the two factions in the south fight it out, one inevitably becomes more victorious, then we step in and throw our weight to them by giving arms and assisitance, but no personnel, to assure them true victory.

So, to answer the question of the day. Divide the country into two, not three, parts. Protect the Kurds. Monitor how the rest of Iraq self-destructs.

KJW:

WHO ARE WE KIDDING - THE PARTITION HAS ALREADY BEGUN

Kurdistan is realistically an independent state with its own elected government, its own army, and its own flag. The Iraqi flag is banned and, by Kurdistan law, the Iraqi army cannot enter Kurdistan. Iraq's Shia-dominated south is not yet organized as its own state, but it is governed separately from Baghdad by Shia religious parties that enforce Iranian-style Islamic law through Shia militias that number in the tens of thousands. Large parts of the Sunni triangle are controlled by insurgents and their sympathizers, while other parts are battlegrounds between the insurgency and the U.S. military.

Iraq's so-called government of national unity governs almost nothing. Its ministries are not even present in Kurdistan, while any presence in the south reflects the co-incidence of having the same Shia religious parties that dominate the central government also running their own theocracies in the south. Most government ministers do not go to their ministries, as this involves a potentially deadly trip outside the Green Zone. Iraq's government is powerless even its own capital.

Iraq is a society split on ethnic and religious grounds. Not surprisingly, Iraq's constitution reflects these divisions. It recognizes Kurdistan as an existing region and allows other parts of Iraq to form their own regions. Under Iraq's constitution, regions have their own elected governments, can have their own armies, control all new oil fields (fields not in commercial production on the date the constitution was adopted), and share control of existing oil fields. Except for a very short list of powers exclusive to the federal government, regional law supersedes federal law. Neither taxes nor natural resources are within federal purview.

Like any good partition plan, the Iraqi constitution includes provisions to resolve territorial disputes between regions--including one between Kurdistan and Arab Iraq over Kirkuk. Although Iraq's Sunni minority says it is against this partition of Iraq, Iraq's Kurds already have their region and, with the Shia creating their own, the Sunni region comes into existence by default.

Partition is a fact. In order to unify Iraq, the United States would have to undertake two military missions that it is not doing. First, U.S. troops would have to disband the Shia militias that have allowed the creation of Shia theocracies throughout southern Iraq and in the Shia parts of Baghdad. Second, they would have to become the peacekeepers in Iraq's Sunni-Shia civil war. Both tasks would require many more troops than the Bush administration is prepared to commit, and, even then, the United States might not succeed.

Reversing partition would also require persuading the Kurds to give up the independence they now enjoy. The Kurds not only want out of Iraq, but they hate the country that they associate with decades of repression (beginning at the time Iraq was created) that culminated in genocide in the 1980s.

Iraq's civil war has caused extraordinary suffering for Sunni and Shia populations in mixed areas, especially in Baghdad. Sectarian killing now claims 100 lives per day; it is now less targeted at specific individuals and much more random.

The formation of self-governing regions in Iraq will leave people living outside the areas where their group is the majority. But this is almost always the case in partitions.

The final objection to partition is that Iraq's neighbors will object or, alternatively, take advantage of the country's breakup. Turkey, Iran, and Syria all have large Kurdish populations, and none of them want to see an independent Kurdistan. They have adjusted well to the emergence of a de facto independent Kurdistan, developing close political and economic ties with the emerging state.

The future of a partitioned Iraq is unclear. I believe it is a matter of time before a fully independent Kurdistan emerges from the wreckage of the old Iraq. Fortunately, the Kurds have prudent leaders who will not go for formal independence until the international environment is favorable, but, when it is, they will leave Iraq. As to whether the Shia and Sunni entities (assuming the latter emerges) remain in a single state is, at this stage, unclear.

Iraq's peoples have chosen--through their votes, in their constitution, and in the behavior of their leaders--the path of disunity. It is not a rational use of U.S. military, diplomatic, and economic resources to try to put back together a country not desired by a sizable part of its own population.

EJS:

Donald Rumsfeld probably didn't envision a split Iraq in 2003, nor did any other of the so called neocons in the administration. At this point though, changes must be made. It is time to start thinking outside the box on this situation, and this idea is certainly one that has been bantered around quite a bit. Will it work? Who knows. But anything has got to be better than trying to follow these asinine rules of engagements that we have in place currently. Our military is being used as a highway patrol service for Iraq. Political cowardice has cost us lives, and has almost cost this country the resolve to win.

I do not believe that this means we should abandon our benchmarks for victory in Iraq. We should still have as a goal to create a government(s) that can govern and defend themselves, and probably the most vital benchmark we must ensure is met is to create an ally in the War on Terror in Iraq. We must be willing to politically support the forces of moderation within the Muslim community there in order to prevent Iraq from devolving into an Islamic regime such as Iran. This means that the militias and death squads, both Sunni and Shiite, must still be dealt with, regardless of a partition plan. We should have taken out Moqtada Al-Sadr in 2003 when we had the chance, and we see this now as his continued popularity has spurned the sectarian violence. This is one of the biggest errors committed by the administration in post-invasion Iraq.
Another sticky point in partitioning Iraq will be the distribution of oil revenues. This is virtually the only income the Iraq economy has at this point, and the revenues must be split fairly between all three ethnic groups. Without doing this, sectarian violence will continue unabated. Even with the partitioning of Iraq, enforcement of this partition will require the presence of US troops in Iraq for the foreseeable future. The hope is that Iraqi security forces will be able to assume the day-to-day security operations, and US forces can retreat to forward operating bases and provide advisement and emergency situation support. The question as to whether this approach will work or not is not clear, but we will never know unless we try. What is clear is that no progress is being made now, and in the meantime we are losing one to three soldiers everyday. The American people are not antiwar, they are discouraged with the inability to secure victory. Perhaps this is the solution.