Dividing Iraq

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 times of london

Not that this matters but I have been suggesting what will, no doubt be called the Baker Plan, for a couple of years. The reality is that Iraq is not and never was a nation in any but the legal sense of the word having, in fact, been three provinces of the Ottoman Empire cobbled together by Winston Churchill and an American diplomat whose name I forget. Division, while it will annoy the Sunnis and send the Turks a bit ballistic, has made sense from the go.

Juan Cole does not like the plan for a variety of reasons including ballistic Turks, unhappy Sunnis and Saudis, not to mention the “Muslim world’s” potential dismay at the demise of the entirely artificial construct which is Iraq. Cole’s dismay is a point in favour of the idea.

The major difficulty with such a plan is that while the Kurds are pretty much in control of their territory - including Kirkut the center of the Iraq oil industry - the Sunnis and Shi’ites are hopelessly tangled together in the main cities of Iraq. While a good deal of the violence in Baghdad seems to be the process of “ethinic” cleansing in particular neighbourhoods, the fact remains that seperating the parties is going to be a tough job if there is not to be a post-Partition India degree of slaughter.

But the idea still makes a hell of a lot more sense than endlessly losing troops and civilians to try and retain an entirely imaginary state known as Iraq. 1919 need not be cast in stone.

Written by jay on October 8th, 2006 with 1 comment.
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