When the future of Iraq is discussed, people who know a lot about Iraq (and people who don’t, but let’s discount them) frequently discuss a break-up of the country as if it would be a terribly bad thing.
I understand that the Turks might not welcome an independent Kurdistan, but can’t see why anyone else would object to creating a relatively sensible new country in the Middle East. I also find it hard to see why we should force Sunnis and Shias to co-exist in the rest of the country: why not split Iraq into a Kurdish north, a Sunni middle, and a Shia south?
Coalition troops could ensure that the inevitable ethnic homogenisation of each region came about through migration rather than through genocide; the end result would be three stable states instead of one festering mess of hatred and old-score-settling…
I’m sure there are good reasons why this wouldn’t work. I’d be interested to know what they are, however.
Hi,
This is edward touching base as it were. I have a lot of sympathy with this argument. Certainly the Kurdistan thing is more or less invetiable in the long run, and indeed the EU should be working on Turkey about this in the membership negotiations.
However…..
A shiite state: where would this be? There is, it seems a big shiite population in Baghdad. According to Informed Comment – which I think is a must read here (another guy getting shot at from both sides) – only 15% of the Iraq population may be sunni. Also there is the problem – which I am not equipped to deal with – of relations with Iran.
At the same time the sunnis would seem to risk being left without oil. I guess this would be a big problem. Then would Arab nationalism ever accept any of this?
I only see problems, but since I only see problems whichever way I look here, this doesn’t necessarily make it worse than the rivals.
I think we need to start to get to grips with what the expression ‘in for the long haul’ might mean here. The Balkans might begin to offer a yardstick. Any end-date for the UN presence in Kossovo. And to put this in some kind of perspective remember Milosevic never got round to mass gassing Albanians.