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With
Iraq at the center of the U.S. presidential
election, the ongoing debate over how to pacify the
country is reaching fever pitch in Washington.
Two parallel ideas are gaining traction. One is that
Iraq be broken up into three states. The votaries of
this argument believe that the U.S. has made a
fundamental flaw in committing itself to a unified
Iraq, which was artificially created from three
former provinces of the Ottoman Empire and is
populated by distinct ethnic and sectarian
communities. Writing in The New York Times last
November, Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the
Council on Foreign Relations and one of those
advancing the idea, suggested that the only viable
strategy "may be to correct the historical defect
and move in stages toward a three-state solution:
Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center and Shiites
in the south."
The second idea holds that the U.S. must seek an
early withdrawal from Iraq so that Iraqis can,
essentially, fight their future out. Writing in
Frontpagemagazine.com in September, Middle East
scholar Barry Rubin emphasized: "The American
presence is preventing an all-out civil war by
staying in Iraq but it is also sustaining a
different kind of civil war. And it is only the
post-American civil war that will settle the
country's future." Rubin asserted that U.S. forces
stood in the way of the main Iraqi political forces
that wanted to wipe out terrorist groups and take
over the country for themselves. He added that these
forces had no interest in supporting the interim
Iraqi government, which could not eliminate the
terrorists, but also kept them out of power.
Both these strategies are dangerous and, if
implemented, would have serious implications for the
Middle East in general and Iraq in particular. There
are four main reasons for this.
First, most of the states in the Middle East were
artificially created. The various conflicts in which
they have been involved over the decades have
highlighted the diverse nature of the region.
However, paradoxically, these very conflicts also
hardened the artificial lines drawn up by the
colonial powers. When Iraq and Iran went to war in
1980, the Iraqis thought that the large Arab
population of the Iranian province of Khuzistan
would support them. The Iranians, in turn, hoped
that Shiites in Iraq would identify with the Islamic
Republic. As it turned out, Arab Iranians and Shiite
Iraqis remained loyal to their respective countries.
Similarly, during the height of the civil war in
Lebanon, when the support of regional powers for key
communal factions threatened to unravel the fabric
of the Lebanese state, most Christians and Muslims
insisted on maintaining Lebanon's unity. And during
the first and second Gulf wars, Iraq's Kurdish
political leadership aspired more toward autonomy
than to outright independence.
Despite their artificial make-up, Middle Eastern
nations have become the focus of political
identification by their peoples, partly because the
historical evolution of the Middle East has created
a complex matrix of identities. Consider that
historical Kurdistan sits atop historical Assyria,
and that the national myth of Kurdistan for a Kurd
is no less strong than that of Assyria for an
Assyrian. The two, however, can identify themselves
as Kurdish-Iraqi and Assyrian-Iraqi. This is partly
why a federal Iraq remains the best solution for
integrating Iraq's communities. After all, communal
conflicts in Iraq have been political.
Second, Iraq's ethnic and sectarian communities are
not confined to their respective provinces.
Significant numbers of Shiites and Kurds live in
Baghdad. Christians live in Mosul. Turkmens and
Arabs live in Kirkuk. Arab Sunnis live in Basra. The
creation of Sunni, Kurdish and Shiite states would
merely exacerbate ethnic and sectarian conflicts and
plunge Iraq into a drawn-out civil war.
Third, the three-state solution will go against a
trend in globalization that seeks to reduce national
boundaries. The partition solution in Iraq puts the
cart of separation before the horse of federation.
What's more, one can expect Turkish, Iranian and
Arab apprehension of and opposition to a divided
Iraq, at a time when the region has no structural
framework to vitiate against efforts to advance
cross-border national interests. In other words,
partition would probably ensure that Iraq's
neighbors interfere it its affairs, perhaps
militarily.
Finally, given that a majority in Iraq is Shiite,
while most insurgents are Sunni, allowing a civil
war, as Rubin suggests, would inadvertently lead to
partition of the country, belying his premises for
allowing a civil war to take place. Contrary to what
Rubin wrote, the main political forces in Iraq are
either members of the interim government, or are
working with it to hold elections in January in
order to confer legitimacy upon a new government.
Recently, Ayatollah Ali Sistani issued a fatwa
"requiring believers to register to vote." It is
this combination of legitimacy and fair Shiite
representation that will decide Iraq's future. A
legitimate government, buttressed by political
support and a communal consensus, will destroy the
terrorists far more effectively than allowing a
breakdown of Iraq. And this process requires the
supervision and backing of American troops.
What the Middle East does need is a long-term
strategy to bring stability, peace and democratic
principles to the peoples of the region, while at
the same time helping incorporate the region into
the world order. Ultimately, even if this is in the
distant future, the ideal plan is to work for a
federal Iraq as part of a larger federal United
States of the Middle East.
By Robert G. Rabil
Special to The Daily Star, Lebanon
Robert G. Rabil is a visiting professor of Middle
East studies at Florida Atlantic University and the
author of "Embattled Neighbors: Syria, Israel and
Lebanon."
http://www.aina.org
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