Iraq - time to cut it up into a loose federation, or several countries?

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!


Can´t seem to get the posting of a poll right today... Lets hope threes the charm! <Peter Gustafsson->

One of the less awful places in the mess that is Iraq is its north, where there is a de facto, but not a de jure, Kurdish state. I recently read about suggestions to establish an autonomous region for the christians, which are a small (3%, by some estimates) and dwindling (war, large scale fleeing) minority in Iraq. I found only one good English-language link to that:
http://www.publications.parliament.u...t/50706-23.htm

Ethnic cleansing, is not good, but widespread mayhem is not nice either. It may be so that the present situation is more about avoiding the worst, rather than striving for the best. I therefore suggest for discussion a system where the occupational force pays families living in Iraq to swap homes, if the swap makes both families more to an area where their respective ethnic/religious group is more common. If the swap results in someone moving to an area where they are in the outright majority, the premium paid should be higher. Such swaps should only take place between families which have signed up an interest in swapping, there should be no coercion in the program.

This will cost a bit, but the present situation is not cheap either. The total internal border length will shorten noticeably, and extremeist will have to travel further to find places where most bomb victims are not of their own group. This should make the present type of terrorism a bit more impractical.

So, what say ye? What are the practical drawbacks to the idea?

If this would result in large contiguous areas where the population consists of a majority of at least 80% of any one ethnic group, then those areas might be candidates for de jure nation-hood. I believe that such states would be inherently more stable and better for their surroundings, so that would be a good idea. Turkey would object to a formally seceded Kurdistan, but are there any other external groups which would openly voice displeasure? Is there any good reason not to split Iraq?


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[Zilverzmurfen]

Most importantly; what do the iraqis themselves think?

I'm afraid I have no opinion on the matter as this is not my own country and thus none of my business how they want to organise their nation. I will only say that religion is humans worst invention and look at Israel/Palestine, Yugoslavia etc etc etc...

[the maple epee]

Most importantly; what do the iraqis themselves think?

I'm afraid I have no opinion on the matter as this is not my own country and thus none of my business how they want to organise their nation. I will only say that religion is humans worst invention and look at Israel/Palestine, Yugoslavia etc etc etc...

Seconded...

[OROD]

I will only say that religion is humans worst invention and look at Israel/Palestine, Yugoslavia etc etc etc...

People are stupid. Religion is only the natural extension of that stupidity.

.

[Inquartata]

I opined years ago that: the Kurds should be given the north as an independent country ( which it is already in all but name ); the Shiites in the south should be annexed to Iran, since they seem so in love with Teheran ( and then let the Iranians deal with the Arab-Persian animosity ). The Sunnis should get the center, as a country but with no oilfields, as recompense for their insurgency. They would then be impoverished and surrounded by enemies, but they could have their dearest wish and install another al-Tikriti Baathist dictator to rule over them. Thus everyone gets their just desserts ( or deserts ).

[jBirch]

The only problem with this absolutely fabulous idea is that neither the Kurds, nor the Sunni Iraqis nor the Shi'ia Iraqis want an independent state.

James.

[Inquartata]

Too bad. We are the ones they are excoriating and trying to kill. That kind of takes them off the list of those who get what they want from us.

[mrbiggs]

One of the less awful places in the mess that is Iraq is its north, where there is a de facto, but not a de jure, Kurdish state.

It's getting close to de jure. The Iraqi army is not allowed on Kurdish soil, for example.

Too bad. We are the ones they are excoriating and trying to kill. That kind of takes them off the list of those who get what they want from us.

I think that angering them further will just create more violence.

[Gav]

Hi!


Can´t seem to get the posting of a poll right today... Lets hope threes the charm! <Peter Gustafsson->

One of the less awful places in the mess that is Iraq is its north, where there is a de facto, but not a de jure, Kurdish state. I recently read about suggestions to establish an autonomous region for the christians, which are a small (3%, by some estimates) and dwindling (war, large scale fleeing) minority in Iraq. I found only one good English-language link to that:
http://www.publications.parliament.u...t/50706-23.htm

Ethnic cleansing, is not good, but widespread mayhem is not nice either. It may be so that the present situation is more about avoiding the worst, rather than striving for the best. I therefore suggest for discussion a system where the occupational force pays families living in Iraq to swap homes, if the swap makes both families more to an area where their respective ethnic/religious group is more common. If the swap results in someone moving to an area where they are in the outright majority, the premium paid should be higher. Such swaps should only take place between families which have signed up an interest in swapping, there should be no coercion in the program.

This will cost a bit, but the present situation is not cheap either. The total internal border length will shorten noticeably, and extremeist will have to travel further to find places where most bomb victims are not of their own group. This should make the present type of terrorism a bit more impractical.

So, what say ye? What are the practical drawbacks to the idea?

If this would result in large contiguous areas where the population consists of a majority of at least 80% of any one ethnic group, then those areas might be candidates for de jure nation-hood. I believe that such states would be inherently more stable and better for their surroundings, so that would be a good idea. Turkey would object to a formally seceded Kurdistan, but are there any other external groups which would openly voice displeasure? Is there any good reason not to split Iraq?


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

It seems evident from your post that you have no idea about this sort of thing at all. I recommend doing a little reading on the End of the Raj in India.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

It seems evident from your post that you have no idea about this sort of thing at all. I recommend doing a little reading on the End of the Raj in India.

What have I done to warrant this harshness?

Anyway, I did not find a Wikipedia entry on "End of the Raj", nor did a Google search give any good links on the 1st page. Care to give a little background?

Anyway, the whole idea was molded on the reasonably amicable split of Czechoslovakia into two countries, each with the largest ethnic group as a very large majority. What is the point of keeping people who hate each other together?


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[Gav]

Anyway, I did not find a Wikipedia entry on "End of the Raj", nor did a Google search give any good links on the 1st page. Care to give a little background?

This is the partitioning of India. Feturing unknowns such as Ghandi and Neru.

What is the point of keeping people who hate each other together?

I forget the figures but the death toll, from partitioning alone, was in the hundreds of thousands. Sure a few thousand people died beforehand but religious hatred (stoked up by people who saw the main-chance), amongst people who had previously lived together for a few hundred years killed far far more people. The British found themselves in a similar position in India that the coalition does now...

I have to say that the wiki entry on the British Raj is .. not very helpful.

It's a pretty important moment in history.

Anyway, the whole idea was molded on the reasonably amicable split of Czechoslovakia into two countries, each with the largest ethnic group as a very large majority. What is the point of keeping people who hate each other together?

find it hard to understand why you would want to compare Czechoslavakia with a middle eatesrn country... Your comparison is astonishing.

[pigeonmeister]

The only problem with this absolutely fabulous idea is that neither the Kurds, nor the Sunni Iraqis nor the Shi'ia Iraqis want an independent state.

James.

Kurdish politicians have stated that they wish Iraq to remain unified. I believe that many Kurds actually would prefer independence. But it is difficult to distinguish politically motivated threats of secession from actual desires. For example the president of Iraq's northern Kurdistan region rejected in its entirety the report by the Iraq Study Group, and threatened that Kurds would opt for secession from Iraq should Washington try to implement some of the key recommendations of the report regarding Kirkuk, federalism and the constitution.

Surely Inq is not suggesting that it would be in America's (or the regions) interests to unify Southern Iraq and Iran. OMG!!!!! Have you not read the countless articles recently articulating America's fear of a "Shiite crescent" emanating from Iran? As if America hasn't allready hugely increased Iran's strategic strength and limited its own efforts re- Iran's nuclear programme. Now you want to give them undisputed control of the country's only real port and access to the Persian Gulf? Whilst giving Iran control of 70% of Iraq's oil (what about Iranian sanctions- how could this area benefit if it was cloaked by the Iranian Sanction Act?).

This simplistic plan is totaly at odds with any real understanding of the region. The Shia are not a monolithic group, they do not consider themselves as Iranians living in Iraq, they do not, as a majority, wish to be ruled from Tehran. The Shia have differing attitudes toward religion and state, are divided by families and regions, urban versus rural, and secular versus religious. There is huge variation in the perceived interests of Iraq’s indigenous and diaspora Shia movements. These two groups, respectively under the leadership of Moqtada al-Sadr and SCIRI (al-Hakim), are not always on good terms. These tensions have already erupted last August 2005 when Sadr’s Mahdi Army and the Badr Corps engaged in violent clashes over constitutional issues.

Plus the idea of Iran bordering Kuwait, or that the Saudis would allow a super Shia state to emerge on its border is just impossible to contemplate.

Plus Iran has always had trouble with Khuzestan (the Arab Shia region of Iran bordering on Iraq). I don't think they would want more ethnic strige in their country. That region of Iraq has also historically been very important in propelling movements of internal dissent and industrial strikes.

You'll be telling me that they speak Persian in Basra next.

The federal route is a possibility- the idea of Iran-Shiastan unification is just laughable.

p.s There is more and more oil being found in the Sunni areas of Iraq (esp Anbar)

see 'Iraqi Sunni Lands Show New Oil and Gas Promise' NYT (feb 19 07)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/19/wo...2789c6&ei=5070

[introspective]

I have to agree with "it's not my country and none of my business".
In fact, a resounding cheer to that. A country should be run the way the citizens of that country want it to be run.....the only time it becomes anyone else's business is when they
1. start a war
2. start a genocide
3. Take land belonging to other people [tsk tsk]

After that all their trade agreements, their food, their clothes, their girlfriends are all their stuff.

post script: btw population swaps are horrible leading to future problems that no-one wants to think about ergo: india's gigantic migration of Muslims into Pakistan, and Pakistan's gigantic migration of Hindus into India after the British left. But now they are gone and things should go back to the "way we were". People just have to learn how to get along better on their own, unless of the above three mentioned.

[Inquartata]

I think that angering them further will just create more violence.

Down this road lies capitulation and eventual annihilation or servitude.

What others should we give free rein merely to avoid "angering them"? Street gangs? Drug cartels? Serial killers? Armed robbers?

Nonviolence works against those who underneath it all have a basic decency and recognize limits to behavior. It is unlikely to work against those whose essential quality is hatred and who are willing to die if only they can take you with them. Against these violence can only be met with even greater violence, until eventually either the human instinct for self-preservation is fanned back to life or until they are no more...

[Inquartata]

Surely Inq is not suggesting that it would be in America's (or the regions) interests to unify Southern Iraq and Iran.

Oh, but I am, I very definitely am.

At present we have a bit of the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" thing going on with the Iraqi Shiites. Take away the common enemy and they would soon remember that they are Arabs and the Iranians are Persians, and they would be back at each others' throats soon enough. Result: Either a persistent internal problem for Iran, or the suppression of a violent, turbulent population presently inclined to random violence. I would find either satisfactory.

OMG!!!!! Have you not read the countless articles recently articulating America's fear of a "Shiite crescent" emanating from Iran?

I find them generally unconvincing.

Now you want to give them undisputed control of the country's only real port and access to the Persian Gulf?

Yes. Iran, whether the mullahs like it or not, is moving toward the West. Its demographics almost certainly mean that it will become less and less a threat as time passes and the old guard dies off and the newer generations come into their own.

In the meantime, the move doesn't really leave us worse off than we already are. Ports can be blockaded, as the Iranians readily threaten to do themselves. And while the West might be hurt by an oil embargo, Iran would be hurt much worse by a blockade. Remember, it is in about the same situation vis-a-vis gasoline imports as we are regarding oil imports; that it, it is unable to supply its own needs for fuels due to a shortage of refining capacity. Military strikes against that small capacity would be unnecessary. Given time the Iranian economy would simply grind to a halt for lack of gasoline, diesel, jet fuels and duel oils.

Plus the idea of Iran bordering Kuwait, or that the Saudis would allow a super Shia state to emerge on its border is just impossible to contemplate.

What is Saudi Arabia going to do? Attack Iran with the huge, fearsome armies it doesn't have?

[introspective]

It's like: "a friend of a friend told me....." Well, I've never been involved with carving up territories.....but, let's have a whack at it..... [please don't try this trick at home without supervision]. Check all the borders and divvie it up between the neighbors and see how they may manage things.


In the meanwhile....and I'm not trying to change the subject, [and I don't want to start a new thread] so speaking of the middle east, what do you all thing of the Dubai project? Do you think the manmade islands have had an effect on the climate? Slowing down ocean currents....does that heat up the ocean even more and does it create new currents or divert currents such that any storms that may be forming may become even more gigantic? On the other hand, they have created some nice new coral reefs, and possibly the newest dive spot on the planet?

I like what some of our activist friends are doing for the environment, they're really taking the lead again - especially with regard to consumables. So I had another thought [] and I know how you all feeeeeeel about my 'thoughts', but that's why I post, for your feedback....what do you think of how we get rid of garbage, like regular old fashioned mundane, everyday stuff that we put out on the curb. Is it a horrible thought to compress everything into big cubes, pack it up for NASA and shoot it to the outer limits? What do you think can we incinerate it somewhere in space?

Maybe a friend of a friend can help us develop a plan for it all. I would love to hear ideas and maybe we can pool this all together.

[PeterGustafsson]

Hi!

I forget the figures but the death toll, from partitioning alone, was in the hundreds of thousands.

Well, so far the death toll among Iraqi civilians (since the war started) is stated to be in the tens of thousands, and growing quickly. Considering the different total populations, the proportion of the population that has died due to non-natural causes is quite possibly higher in Iraq than in the Subcontinent.

Sure a few thousand people died beforehand but religious hatred (stoked up by people who saw the main-chance), amongst people who had previously lived together for a few hundred years killed far far more people.

In Iraq, religious hatred is being stoked up right now, and has been for some time. You can not unstoke hatred. You can, at best, wait for it to subside. What you can do, though, is to move people - who have asked to do so - around. This should not be done by telling them to leave and go to another place. My suggestion was that families would swap homes, and that the actual moving would be done in armoured people-carriers, in convoys defended by coalition soldiers. If that proves to unsafe, it can be done by troop-transport choppers. Sure it costs a bundle, but the present situation costs a lot too. Those who do not want to move get tot stay, but once they are among the 5% minority (instead of the 20% minority) they might change their minds.

The British found themselves in a similar position in India that the coalition does now...

Those that do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.


Have a nice time!

Peter Gustafsson

[jBirch]

I'm actually getting to the point where I think the US should just withdraw, let Iraq collapse and help rebuild it when they're done killing each other.

What Iraq needs is to believe in itself as being able to stand up for itself on the world stage. The big mistake (IMHO) after invading was to put Americans in charge of everything. No matter what the Iraqis did, they were undercut by the Americans. And now, the popular support is shifting to Iraqis who can offer some sort of security for their people.

Iraq is in the middle ages as far as government goes. The lords need to fight out their territory and they need to find a king who will stomp them all into the earth if they step out of line.

Sadly, the US (and the international community as a whole) seems to believe that democracy will bring peace when rather its war that brings democracy. Bloody war that brings the parties to a standstill.

The US is the bastion of freedom it is now because of one man, Washington, refused to be crowned and one king, King John of England, had his crown subjugated to a writen standard. Not every nation in the world has understood this. And even fewer have been able to make the transition peacefully. Not the US or Britain or France or Russia or China.

We think that because we have all these technological gadgets that everyone in the world believes in the rule of law over the rule of the gun.

We're wrong.

James.

[Lucifer]

IN fact, our treatment of Iraq is nothing less than emotional abuse. (I'll let you google it, I'm not in the mood to psychoanalyze right now)

I figure we've got 2 choices.

1. Admit we failed and tell the Iraqis they're on their own, they can fight it out all they want or not.

2. Admit we failed and ask the UN to come in and monitor like they're doing in Yugoslavia.

In the first case, I think the UN will wind up stepping in anyway, and then we can go back and be more helpful.