U.S. Senate calls for Iraq's Partition

This was news couple days ago. Not a binding resolution. Just like the BS the Ahole from Iran spewed at Columbia. No biggie.

 

I am glad that they are coming to sense. This is really the only way out.

 

It's news, tiger. I'll quote your source, which explains it rather well, for those too lazy to click on the link and read it. A feather in the cap of Joe Biden. If anyone is upset about it not getting more play, it ought to be him. He worked hard for this.

The United States Senate, giving its opinion...


US Senate calls for Iraq's partition


Washington (dpa) - US lawmakers voted Wednesday to split Iraq into a loose federation of sectarian-based regions and urged President George W Bush to press Iraqi leaders to agree.

More than 20 Republicans joined Democrats to pass the non-binding measure in the Senate, 75-23, showing frustration in both parties about Bush's war policy and lagging national reconciliation in Iraq.

Supporters of Iraqi partition believe it would let Shia, Sunni and Kurdish factions settle their differences and make it easier for US troops eventually to return home.

But the measure, attached to the 2008 defence budget, runs against US administration policy to keep Iraq united and would likely face a veto if it reached Bush's desk.

The proposal to breaking up Iraq into decentralized regions came from Senator Joseph Biden, who heads the chamber's foreign relations committee and is running for the 2008 Democratic Party presidential nomination.

Biden has long championed the federal plan, saying it would give Iraq's main groups "breathing room in their own regions" and speed up a US troop withdrawal.

But partition would raise concern in neighbouring Turkey, which is fighting a Kurdish separatist movement and would be wary of broader autonomy for Iraqi Kurds across the border.

Sunni-led Saudi Arabia would likely fear a further rise in Iranian influence over Iraq if Iraqi Shiites controlled their own mini-state.

A key Republican supporter and presidential candidate, Senator Sam Brownback, has urged Bush to send a high-level envoy to Iraq "to get these people in a room to cut the deal to get different states, where you have the power mostly residing in the states."

Biden's amendment calls for the US government to work for a "political settlement based on the creation of federal regions within a united Iraq."

http://www.eux.tv/article.aspx?articleId=15201



D&D. Impeach Bush.

 

A year from now, partition will be THE front-burner issue in Iraq. Better late than never. Not only is it the correct thing to do, it can somewhat unite the major U.S. political parties on something and facilitate a permanent Iraq resolution. The argument will turn to how many brigades to leave behind in the Kurdish region.

Concerning the Arab League, mostly pffffft. Concerning Turkey, this is another reason a permanent presence of U.S. troops in the Kurdish region is needed.

 

I don't know if there are any other better options, but giving it lots of thought I'm not sure it will end as well as it would seem at first blush. My concern is that you will have a situation very much like Yugoslavia.

Yugoslavia was a federalized conglomeration of Slovenia, Bosnia, Serbia, and others. By remaining a strongly federalized system, they continued to identify as Serbs or Bosnians, not Yugos.

I think this means that they will eventually see no reason to remain in a union. As in Yugoslavia, when these states try to separate, they will find that populations have mixed and there will be conflict over who land really belongs to, like Bosnians Serbs vs. Bosniaks. The same thing was seen in most of post-colonial Africa as well as the partition of India/Pakistan by the British.

And even if they do manage to disengage themselves from each other, you currently have relative size parity between Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Cut Iraq into three states and you loose that relative parity, and it becomes much more like the Iraq vs. Kuwait.

I think this may be the most effective way to disengage. But I believe that it probably will be sowing the seeds of major instability in 10 or so years. The problem is I'm not sure there is a better way.

But ultimately I think federalization will result in three seperate countries, which will result in major instability and conflict both internal to the former Iraq, and in relation to the former Iraq and her neighbors as that shakes out.

 

Very good points.

First, partition may lead to 3 separate countries. Is that good idea? It may be the only permanent solution. You want instability and conflict? Try keeping Iraq together. It would be indefinite chaos with 3 groups that detest each other and have 3 different agendas on what a "united" Iraq should be. Without a brutal and sadistic Sunni regime, Iraq cannot be kept together. It is better broken up.

Partition is also the best way towards 3 separate states. For a lot of reasons, there is no way in the world the U.S. can propose and support dividing Iraq into 3 countries. The only diplomatic way to get there is by first settling things down with a soft partition, then letting the sides take things further on their own. Well, 2 of the 3 sides that is.

Balanced parity for the region was lost when we invaded and took Saddam Hussein down. With him in power, you had 4 countries who hated and distrusted each other and had almost nothing in common: Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

 

I don't think the situation is going to end well, regardless, nor do I think Turkey will tolerate a real independent Kurdistan. Even a de facto independent state that pretends it is part of an "Iraq," much like Taiwan re China, is unlikely to be tolerated by Turkey. Nothing short of on-going US occupation of Kurdistan, in my opinion, de facto independence or not, will prevent Turkey moving in and crushing it. Look to Cyprus as an example of how "shy" Turkey is about intervening, if she sees her national interests threatened.

Having said that, what real choice is there? The genie is out of the bottle, and George Bush popped the cork. We better keep our carrier battle groups well maintained, and our Marine Expeditionary Forces ready. If we keep major bases in Kurdistan, a land-locked region, we are going to be faced with decades of not only protecting the Kurds, and not only from Turkey, but of being willing and able to force what remains of Iraq to allow access to our bases. It is highly likely that a Shia dominated Iraq, close to Iran politically, will view decades of US land access and/or over-flights to supply major US bases in Kurdistan as a very unfriendly and unwelcome imposition.

(and I know these thoughts aren't anything new to you, Ottomaton... but I do think others here might not understand what we'll be seeing in the future, after we "leave")


Regarding Yugoslavia... like Iraq and Saddam, it was held together by a strongman, Tito, and it was only a matter of time before something was going to happen to the disparate parts, the leftovers of Serbia, the Ottoman Empire, and Austria-Hungary. What is sad is the violent split. I think a split, violent or not, was inevitable anyway.

Sorry to digress, but I remember visiting a Yugoslav family in Belgrade in March of '71, having met a fellow coming home from working in France on the train to Greece from Italy, and being invited to stay with his family in a huge apartment block. Just stepped off the train on impulse. It was snowing like crazy! We went out to a nightclub, dancing with chicks to rock and roll, which was bizarre, considering that I was in the capitol of a communist state in the middle of the Cold War. His family liked to listen to what sounded like Gypsy music, or something like it, on the radio, which was cool. During the day, I saw Gypsies walking barefoot in the snow, and the locals would cross the street, rather than walk past them. Too strange. Naturally, I walked right by them and smiled. They looked at me (the Gypsies) like I'd dropped off the Moon or something.

Really had a fascinating and fun time. After several days, I thanked the family for their amazing hospitality, got back on the train, and within a 3 or 4 days I was on Mykonos, staying in a sunny and white-washed upstairs room above a family for .50 cents a night. So different from today.



D&D. Impeach Bush for Gross Incompetence.

 

So One country with three states will not work?
If Texas , California and New York can co-exist . . .

Rocket River

 

Deckard, one of my pipedreams is that the U.S. and Iran will actually have conversations about Iraq's future and reach some kind of an agreement (secret or public). But it's taken Bush so long to even speak to Iran about Iraq that this may be impossible, especially with the recent saber rattling. Turkey could also let us access the Kurdish area of Iraq.

I agree with everyone there is no good resolution to the Iraq debacle. It's about making the best of something awful.

 

Partition will make it harder for us to extract oil out of that area. After all, colonial powers drew Iraq's borders from its natural resources. Plus, the existing contracts in question could be voided or mitigated. Would we really do such a thing? Maybe as a last resort when our power projection in the ME is so weak to necessitate a second proxy state, independent Kurdistan.

This move will destabilize the region, no doubt. All of the despots have created cozy relationships with each other, and in the worst case for them, another pan-Arab movement could arise independently or concurrently with a pan-Shia movement.

In all that chaos, maybe the US will get a reprieve in domestic fundamentalist Muslim terrorism. But whatever the outcome, they will be angry as hell at us for the mess we made.

 

A_3PO, I seriously doubt that we'll see Iran, secretly or in public, make an accommodation with the States over Iraq's future status. Not with the theocratic regime in power, with no end in sight for their grip on the nation. Given truly free elections, I think we could see a government that might consider it. No sure thing. Iraq and Iran fought a brutal war for several years. There were huge casualties, especially on the Iranian side. They don't want an independent Kurdistan, or something resembling it, because they have a large Kurdish minority themselves. And I would be astonished, NATO ally or not, if Turkey acquiesced to a largely independent Kurdistan, whether we had bases, or not. Remember... this is the country that refused to let our forces use Turkey for a northern front, something that would have made things a lot easier early in the game. They still occupy almost half of Cyprus, despite near universal condemnation by the world community. But you never know, right? I wouldn't bet the farm on Turkish cooperation.


D&D. Impeach Bush for Gross Incompetence.

 

Partition is inevitable.

 

I hear you. But with or without cooperation from Iran and Turkey, partition is necessary. Specifically regarding Turkey, I still think their semi-cooperation can be bought, to some extent. Even then, the Kurdish situation with them would be very tense which is why permanent U.S. troops are needed. I'm well aware that not only Turkey, but Iran and the Arabs also dislike the Kurds. Let's face it, the only reason the Kurds love us so much is because nobody else in the world gives them the time of day.

Bottom line: Iraq cannot be put back together like it was so partition is the only alternative, even if all of my other notions about how to do it aren't possible. It's a matter of getting from here to there, somehow. The route is open for debate. Ideas anyone?

 

Iraqi Leader rejects division of nation

BAGHDAD - Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Friday rejected a U.S. Senate proposal calling for the decentralization of Iraq's government and giving more control to the country's ethnically divided regions, calling it a "catastrophe."

The measure, whose primary sponsors included presidential hopeful Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., calls for Iraq to be divided into federal regions for the country's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities in a power-sharing agreement similar to Bosnia in the 1990s.

In his first comments since the measure passed Wednesday, al-Maliki strongly rejected the idea, echoing the earlier sentiments of his country's vice president.

"It is an Iraqi affair dealing with Iraqis," he told The Associated Press while on a return flight to Baghdad after appearing at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. "Iraqis are eager for Iraq's unity. ... Dividing Iraq is a problem and a decision like that would be a catastrophe."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070928/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

 

It's easier said than done. There are a number of issues.

Firstly, nobody in Iraq really trusts the Americans, anything we do will be disputed. Partition might be an option AFTER they’ve had civil war and understood for themselves that it’s not going to work, nobody else is going to be able tell them that, it’s something they are going to have to learn on their own....but in reality if we do let this happen, another Shia Saddam will prop up (due to the situation currently), who in the end will be sleeping with Iran...something we won't let happen.

Secondly, one thing the Shia’s and Sunni’s agree upon is that the Kurds are not Iraqi’s and they don’t deserve anything, they share their hatred for them.


It's not going to work.

 

What a dumb comparison. I really hope that was just a poor attempt at humor.

The United States was founded by people of like interests fleeing persecution, seeking land, etc. and then spreading out over a vast continent. The states being formed here don't compare at ALL to the situation in the Middle East where you have severe religious divisions who all want to rule their own people and what they feel is their own God given land.

You divide up Iraq into three states and give the Kurds an independent land and you had better be prepared to commit American soldiers to them for an extremely long time.

 

This thing by the senate doesn't go far enough. It's a misnomer to call it partition, it's really just a redistribute of the population into states - still have one federal army and administration.

I think we need real partition to make things work, because this will only lead to civil war.

 

i would argue there are probably more differences in americans than iraqis. and as far as the founding of this country, remember the whole slavery thing. it was a pretty big separater. be careful calling someone's post dumb.