breaking up is hard to do

The Iraq Study group is a 'blue-ribbon' commission co-chaired by former SecState James Baker, one of the man most responsible for 9/11 through his years of coddling Middle Eastern dictators. Word on the street is that they are going to recommend, as an alternative to 'cut & run' and 'stay the course', a policy of de facto partition: "that will devolve power and security to the regions, leaving a skeletal national government in Baghdad in charge of foreign affairs, border protection and the distribution of oil revenue."

Far from 'cut & run' (still the Presidential aphorism of choice for withdrawal) this is in fact preparation for a post-election withdrawal of troops as Kurd and Shiite states would assume security for their respective sections. Even though there are all these caveats that it is not a partition, if it is as suggested, it is partition, which is something it is not clear that the Iraqis themselves want and thus that it will solve anything. Quite the opposite, if the partitions of Yugoslavia or India or Vietnam or Korea or Cyprus are any indication. Baker won't be able to say 'we don't have a dog in this fight' as he did with Yugoslavia in the 1990s. This outc ome would be unacceptable to regional neighbors of the Iraqis such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia, leading to wider conflict.

There is no telling how the Iraqis will take this, although it's safe to say it won't be with parades and rose petals. The Sunnis, the Dawa Party and the Sadrists are all against this and together account for almost half the legislature. Thus the US would have to try to impose this by fiat. This would likely set the Sunnis against the Shiites, as one would control water while the other would control all the oil. Most likely, it will be viewed as a Zionist attempt to create several weakened states which do not threaten Israel.

Of course, none of these changes will be examined before the election. That would be tantamount to an admission of failure. But yet Bush still can't admit he was wrong, once again putting his political infallibilty ahead of the good of the nation.

Español | Deutsche | Français | Italiano | Português| Ch| Jp| Ko