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Peter Galbraith backs ethnically divided
Iraq
14.11.2008
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November
14, 2008
Peter Galbraith, a former U.S. ambassador to
Croatia, says that Iraq should split into three
countries, one for each of the ethnic groups in the
region: Sunni, Shiite and Kurd.
The senior diplomatic fellow with the Center for
Arms Control and Nonproliferation tells NPR's Robert
Siegel that the country has already broken up in
partitions along these lines and the U.S. should not
be in the business of putting it back together.
Galbraith says the ethnic factions have started
taking on distinct roles in Iraq. "We have, in the
north Kurdistan, which is, in all regards, an
independent country,www.ekurd.net
with its own army and
its own government. And now between the Shiites and
the Sunnis there are two separate armies — there's a
Shiite army — it's the Iraqi army, but it's
dominated by the Shiites — and in the Sunni areas
there's now the Awakening — a 100,000-man strong
militia. And it is because of the Awakening, and not
so much the surge of U.S. troops, that there's been
this decline in attacks by al-Qaida." |
Peter Galbrait, former State Department Official and
former U.S. ambassador to Croatia |
Galbraith says that the
Sunni Awakening still remains very hostile to the
Iraqi government, and the government sees the
Awakening as a bigger threat than al-Qaida.
The incoming Obama administration will bring Vice
President-elect Joe Biden into the fray, which
Galbraith calls "very encouraging."
Biden "has been the prime proponent of a
decentralized Iraq, and although in the campaign Sen.
McCain described [Biden's] plan as a 'cockamamie'
idea," Galbraith says, "it is in fact what the Bush
administration has done."
In 2007, the Bush administration financed a Sunni
army — the Awakening — and Galbraith says this is
responsible for the success so far in Iraq. Biden
would take this to the next step and encourage the
Sunnis to form their own region, which would control
that army, just as the Kurdistan region controls the
Peshmerga, or the Kurdistan army, Galbraith says.
A decentralized, loosely federalized partitioned
Iraq might eventually be capable of defending its
own interests against its larger neighbors of Iran
and Turkey, but right now, Galbraith says, that's
not happening.
"Iraq is not, today, defending its interests," he
says. "The Iranians wield enormous influence because
the United States actually paved the way for Iran's
allies to become the government of Iraq."
"With regard to the Kurds, actually there's been a
change in attitude on the part of Turkey," Galbraith
says. "There was a time when they thought the idea
of an independent Kurdistan was an almost
existential threat to Turkey. But increasingly,www.ekurd.net
Turks recognize, first,
that this is an accomplished fact — it's already
happened; and second, that there are opportunities —
after all, they share in common that they're
secular, they're pro-Western, and, like the Turks,
they aspire to be democratic and they're not Arabs."
Galbraith says there are two things the U.S. can do
to enhance stability in Iraq as it leaves.
"First, try and solve the territorial dispute over
Kirkuk and other disputed areas between the Kurds
and the Arabs. Secondly, to work out a modus vivendi
between the Iraqi government and the Shiite-led army
and the Sunni Awakening as to who will control what
territory," he says.
"If we can minimize the kinds of things that Sunnis
and Shiites are going to fight over, it may be, over
time, that they will find it in their interests to
have much greater cooperation and that voluntarily
they'll build a stronger Iraqi state," Galbraith
says. "I think it's unlikely the Kurds would ever
join that, but I think it's quite possible between
the Sunnis and Shiites."
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
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