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Only hope for stable Iraq may be soft
partition into three main regions 29.6.2007
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June
29, 2007
WASHINGTON, -- The time may be near when the
only hope for a more stable Iraq is a soft partition
of the country, according to a new analysis written
primarily by Michael O'Hanlon, senior fellow in
foreign policy studies at the Saban Center for
Middle Eastern Policy at the Brookings Institution.
"Soft partition would involve the Iraqis, with the
assistance of the international community, dividing
their country into three main regions," the
analysis, available Thursday, said. "Each would
assume primary responsibility for its own security
and governance, as Iraqi Kurdistan already does."
Creating such a structure could prove difficult and
risky, but when measured against the alternatives --
continuing to police an ethno-sectarian war, or
withdrawing and allowing the conflict to escalate --
the risks of soft partition appear more acceptable,
the paper said.
"Indeed, soft partition in many ways simply responds
to current realities on the ground, particularly
since the February 2006 bombing of the Samarra
mosque, a major Shia shrine, dramatically escalated
intersectarian violence," the analysis said. "If the
U.S. troop surge, and the related effort to broker
political accommodation through the existing
coalition government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki
fail, soft partition may be the only means of
avoiding an intensification of the civil war and
growing threat of a regional conflagration." While
most would regret the loss of a multi-ethnic,
diverse Iraq, the country has become so violent and
so divided along ethno-sectarian lines that such a
goal may no longer be achievable, the analysis
concluded.
"Soft partition would represent a substantial
departure from the current approach of the Bush
administration and that proposed by the Iraq Study
Group, both of which envision a unitary Iraq ruled
largely from Baghdad," the analysis said.
The Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel appointed
by the U.S. Congress last year, submitted its report
last December, but most of its 79 key
recommendations were rejected by the White House.
Soft partition in Iraq "would require new
negotiations, the formation of a revised legal
framework for the country, the creation of new
institutions at the regional level, and the
organized but voluntary movement of populations,"
the analysis said.
Such an approach would require acquiescence from
most major Iraqi political parties, but not
necessarily all of them, since such a standard is
unrealistic in any event, the paper said. The
proposal might best be negotiated outside the
current Iraqi political process, perhaps under the
auspices of a special United Nations representative,
the paper said.
International mediation could succeed where the
current U.S.-led effort to pry concessions out of
the Maliki government has failed, the analysis said.
"Indeed, Kurds and Shia Arabs would have far more
incentive to cede on the fundamental issue of oil
production and revenue-sharing if they knew that
their core strategic objectives would be realized
through secure, empowered regions," the report said.
At the outset, it would suffice for the United
States simply to cease its insistence on the
alternative of an Iraq ruled from Baghdad that at
once fails to serve Sunni Arabs while serving as a
symbolic threat to Shia Arabs -- an Iraq that has
encouraged the Shia Arabs to cement their dominance
of the country's power center against any potential
Sunni Arab rival, the analysis said.
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