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If they divvy up Iraq, won’t that just make it easier for Iran and Syria to grab it? You know, piece by peice.

bloggless on September 27, 2007 at 8:08 AM

Turkey will definitely want a piece off the top.

Odds are the surrounding members of the Islamic Empire would make some sort of deal to split up Iraq. Saddam was only a potential threat to one of them at a time, but they know full well that a democracy in the middle of their Empire would be the death knell for every Islamic dictatorship.

If we get a Democrat President, she’s already said she will be willing to do anything it takes to reduce the number of troops over there at any cost. And so far this is the only suggestion she’s officially signed on to. (My guess is the Sunnis would be the easiest faction for her to deal with, so they’d be the only ones to get protection.)

Anyone who finds themselve falling for the conventional wisdom about the ethno-religious sectarian divide can’t have been reading John Burns closely for long, and should surf on over to Small Wars Journal ASAP to read one of the best pieces on that topic to date, written by Dave Killcullen.

JM Hanes on September 27, 2007 at 2:09 AM

Good read.

Ultimately, if the Iraqi Arabs can get rid of their tribalism by intermarrying amongst the different tribes, they can do what the Kurds have done. Unfortunately, the society will still be Islamic and likely to flip on us at any time.

Iran has twice the GDP and 3 times the labor force of the Saudis. The Saudis spend about 10% of their GDP on the military (3rd in the world), but how much of that they are willing to spend on Iraq is not clear. Iran seems more motivated, so I’d go with them winning.

pedestrian on September 26, 2007 at 3:59 PM

I worked in Saudi Arabia for two years, and noted that as a group of people, they are mainly disinterested in doing any produtive work. Their society tends to look down on anyone who has to do anything other than owning a store (not working in it, OWNING it), being in the police, or being in the military. Iran fought Iraq to a standstill over eight years. Although the Saudis have armed themselves to the teeth with our weapons, it remains to be seen if they have the will to fight. There should be no doubt about Iranian will.

Kudos.

JM Hanes on September 27, 2007 at 1:35 AM

The war was won and in about 3 weeks.

It is the Wilsonian Sunni/Shiite can’t we all just get along nation building project that is failing. Big surprise.

“The fact that some Sunni Arab tribes have “turned on” Al Qaeda does not mean that now those Sunni tribes are “allied with us.” They aren’t. They are simply getting revenge for the Al Qaeda attacks on them. That’s it.

No change of heart about Infidel Americans. No change of heart about Kurds. No change of heart about the Shi’a, who if not quite “Rafidite dogs” nonetheless should not be permitted to lord it over the Sunni Arabs.

The interpretation — misinterpretation — of the split between the relatively tiny (though murderously effective) Al Qaeda group, and the much larger group of Sunnis who will never acquiesce in their loss of power to the Shi’a, and never — it is out of the question — be true friends, or friends at all, of the Americans, show the limits of the current events.”
- Hugh Fitzgerald of Robert Spencer’s JihadWatch

Anyone who finds themselve falling for the conventional wisdom about the ethno-religious sectarian divide can’t have been reading John Burns closely for long, and should surf on over to Small Wars Journal ASAP to read one of the best pieces on that topic to date, written by Dave Killcullen.

75 Senators voted for this? I want to know who the rat bastard Republicans are who voted for this piece of garbage.
MNDavenotPC on September 26, 2007 at 5:53 PM

I’d settle for the names of 75 Iraqi’s who want this.

Democrats in Congress are desperate to have Iraq turn out like Vietnam – with a return to totalitarianism, genocide and expanded base of operations for our enemies.

And the first step in that process is to start a REAL civil war.

Partitioning won’t work. Most of Iraq’s oil is in the Kurdish North and the Shia south. Not much for the Sunnis.
Mazztek on September 26, 2007 at 5:13 PM

Oh, don’t worry about that. The trifling detail of apportioning the oil will (somehow) be taken care of by a “loose central government.”

It’ll all work out just fine, because the liberals in Congress just learned a brand new word: “federalism.” And they redefined it to mean that the people who actually LIVE on the land that produces the wealth are free to be forced to give it all away.

(In other words, liberals want to do to the word “federalism” what they have already done to the words “progressive” and “gay” – redefine them into their polar opposites.)

MB4 on September 26, 2007 at 6:16 PM

Must’ve been Hugh.

Redefining the war on terror as essentially the product of ancient feuds within Islam immediately shifts the argument onto terrain favorable to the West. For the first time in five years, it takes the narrative out of Bin Laden’s hands.

Freud’s term for the passionate hating of people very like oneself — but different in some minor degree — was the “narcissism of small differences”. The West has a chance to exploit that Muslim narcissism for our own purposes.

In the land of the Blind, the one-eyed man is King.

MB4 on September 26, 2007 at 4:54 PM

No,
In the land of the blind, a one eyed man would be judged insane by a jury of his peers. He would be confined in an underground room where he would not bring harm to himself or society by talking about crazy things like “light, dark, colors”.

A plan for a stable Iraq

faraway on September 26, 2007 at 4:56 PM

The middle east already has freedom of religion. Freedom of religion in the middle east just means freedom to be Islamic, as long as it is the right brand, and to try to force others to be Islamic. If you are Islamic Sunni in a Sunni controlled area or if you are Islamic Shiite in a Shiite controlled area.

I know that is not what you meant. You meant actual freedom of religion as we understand it in the west. But then we would be safer if I turned into Superman. Both are rather improbable.

“as though Americans are eternally obligated to serve as buffers between the warring Islamic tribes of Iraq — which is both cracked and a good way to tie up American forces for the next several centuries.”
- Diana West

MB4 on September 26, 2007 at 4:41 PM

Exactly. Sadly, it takes an Eastern European (Diana West) to tell us how Western civilization ought to function.

no kidding, it took America what 8, 11 years to ratify our own constitution and they are pissed that Iraq hasn’t done it in 3???

doriangrey on September 26, 2007 at 3:50 PM

There’s really no comparison between the Iraqi situation and ours. We weren’t killing each other in mass numbers prior ot the ratification of the Constitution. By and large, we were working, going to church, and living relatively peacefully after the war for independence. Islamic societies are set up around completely different presuppositions, as Robert Spencer pointed out in his explanation of Surah 5. Perhaps there’s some hope for the Arabs if they intermarry amongst tribes as the Kurds have done, but that takes at least a generation or two. Ours is a Hebrew-Hellenic civilization. There’s isn’t.

- The Cat