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A sadly ironic upshot of
the war in Iraq would be a return to the status quo
ante bellum. And I don't mean the ante bellum of
three years ago this coming Monday, when U.S.-led
forces invaded to oust Saddam Hussein.
More like the ante bellum of 1914, as World War I
began and the Ottoman Empire made the disastrous
miscalculation of sticking with a secret agreement
and joining the Central Powers.
Adios, Ottoman Empire and its reign over liege
provinces by the waters of Babylon. Hello, Iraq, a
new country slapped together largely by the British
and ruled initially by Winston Churchill's
handpicked king.
So sorry about Woodrow Wilson's promise of an
independent Kurdistan. So sorry about the Treaty of
Sevres and the contradictory Treaty of Lausanne and
all that other chaotic post-World War I diplomacy
that bears on current conflicts yet is skimmed over,
if mentioned at all, in glossy survey courses.
Nor, understandably, is the history of much interest
to noncombatant Iraqis trying to live their daily
lives or to Americans mourning the death of more
than 2,300 U.S. military personnel and the maiming
of thousands more.
But the history does bear on an idea that seems to
be bubbling up again as Arab-on-Arab violence
increases: Divide Iraq into three loosely (if at
all) confederated territories.
The specter of partition seemed to be on President
Bush's mind Monday as he began yet another series of
speeches intended to buck up dwindling U.S. support
for the Iraqi mission that seems destined to shape
his international legacy.
In an address to the Foundation for the Defense of
Democracies, Bush turned repeatedly to the theme of
"unity" in Iraq, at one point declaring: "The only
path to a future of peace is the path of unity."
Partition came to the attention of another audience
Tuesday when the Wall Street Journal published on
its front page an article headlined: "Goal of Iraqi
Unity Fades as Fissures Harden Into Place."
Illustrating the piece was a map of what current
Iraq looked like in 1914, with its three major
provinces: Mosul, Baghdad and Basra.
The three areas represent what is roughly the
current ethnic and sectarian divisions of Iraq: the
Kurdish (largely non-Arab) north (Mosul), the Sunni
center (Baghdad) and the Shia south (Basra).
But only very roughly.
Iraq would not fracture neatly into three pieces but
"into hundreds of pieces," said James Phillips, a
Middle East specialist with the Heritage Foundation.
"This would be a formula for unending instability."
Especially the big cities — Baghdad, Mosul and Basra
— are "completely mixed populations," said Joost
Hiltermann of the human rights organization Crisis
Group.
Phillips predicted that because of the "complex
mosaic" of ethnic and sectarian settlement patterns
that a division of Iraq would engender "ethnic
cleansing" that would make the bloody massacres in
post-partition India and Pakistan pale in
comparison.
"It couldn't come about except by a tremendous
bloodbath,"Hiltermann said. "This is not a natural
solution."
Additionally, Turkey would not be content with a
Kurdish-run state on its eastern border. Nor would
Iran likely keep even arms-length from a new Shia
state on the Persian Gulf.
Tempting as it may be to return to the old British
Colonial Office or High Commission drawing board and
carve up Iraq, it hardly seems the prescription for
increasing the number of the world's peaceable
democracies.
Partition is an admittedly tempting option, which
has been advocated by an eclectic group of Middle
East practitioners.
Almost two years ago, former U.S. diplomat Peter
Galbraith, a liberal Democrat, wrote in the New York
Review of Books: "Iraq is not salvageable as a
unitary state." Even before that Ralph Peters, a
retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who writes
generally conservative military commentary, said
that "speaking of Iraq as a single, integrated
country is a form of lying." He called for Bush to
"perform radical surgery on Iraq."
But thinking back to pre-World War I Mesopotamia,
the Heritage's Phillips recalled that it was the
essentially outsider Ottoman Army that kept the
peace.
What that would mean in a modern context is not very
palatable, as we've already seen.
"Americans don't want to be there keeping the lid on
things," Phillips said.
To say the least.
www.chron.com
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