Michael Totten says it’s time to put it out of its misery.
It’s been an artificial construct for a century.
[Update late afternoon, after returning from Mojave]
Michael emails to tell me that the article is no longer behind the paywall.
23 thoughts on “Iraq”
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Just curious (no snark): In Michael Totten full subscription-only article, does he mention Biden’s proposal to partion Iraq into three parts? I know Biden proposed it in 2006, although he might have proposed it earlier as well.
I can see what I think is the full article (several pages) and no mention of Biden at all.
FWIW, Biden isn’t the only one to propose partition. However, he’s been one of the more visible proponents. I’ll also, in the interests of fairness, note than when Biden proposed partition, the proposal was slammed by some on the right, in what I suspect was more a reaction to the source than the concept. I disaprove of partisan knee-jerk reactions of that sort, because even a broken clock is right twice a day. (and Biden far less, but that doesn’t mean he’s always wrong).
The argument against partition often included concerns that the Shia areas would end up in Iran’s orbit. That was a valid concern, but it appears that it’s happened anyway.
As for the Kurds; I think we’re insane not to back them in this fight againjst ISIS; they are the only ones fighting effectively on the ground. Instead, we’re pursuing a nitwit plan to arm and train a few thousand Syrian rebels for action in a year or two, while largely ignoring the quarter-million Kurdish Peshmerga already fighting.
Quick reply: Thank you. (Also: when I looked before, there was a paywall but now the article is free.)
I’ve been saying this for many, many years. It’s not a popular opinion, but I really think that in Gulf War I (under GHWB), we should have (a) gone the rest of the way into Baghdad, (b) toppled Saddam, (c) partitioned the country at that time in Kurds, Sunni, and Shiite, and (d) walked away. Yeah, we would have left a mess behind, but it would largely have been a self-checking mess. 9/11 might still have happened — that was done out of Afghanistan — but the Iraq War probably would not.
There is nothing “organic” about the USAs borders either. Most of them were drawn by someone in a conference room in Europe.
There are no democracies in the Middle Eastern region but it has nothing to do with how the borders were drawn. The material conditions for democracy, to a large degree, are just not there to begin with.
The war in Iraq and Syria has been funded by outside forces and is not a spontaneous movement like Totten seems to imply.
The Kurds have two problems. They cannot be resupplied by sea and granting them independence would create tensions in every other country with Kurds in their borders i.e. Turkey, Iran, Syria, etc.
“There is nothing “organic” about the USAs borders either.”
Perhaps, but the U.S. is not a failed state. It has all the distinguishing notes we attribute to a nation state. And it has had them for a long time.
It is possible, perhaps (albeit very unlikely), that the borders that Britain drew up for Iraq could have produced a nation-state, too. But that hasn’t happened. There is no prospect that Iraq can develop into a nation-state within its current borders, and there’s growing evidence that this is true of Syria, too. All Totten is arguing for is for the U.S. to not stand in the way of whatever reformulation of states and boundaries may have to develop now to bring about entities that *could* gel into stable nation-states.
As for the Kurds, those problems remain, but at this point, they seem to be outweighed by the arguments for Kurdish nationhood – which they now seem to have in all but name anyway.
“There is nothing “organic” about the USAs borders either. Most of them were drawn by someone in a conference room in Europe.”
The US and the rest of the Americas are immigrant nations, they don’t have the geographical tribal blocks of nations whose borders were drawn up in Europe with mainly indigenous populations as is the case throughout Africa, the Middle East and down into the Indian subcontinent.
“The US and the rest of the Americas are immigrant nations, ”
Except for South and Central America.
There are only a couple of Latin American countries (Bolivia and Guatemala) in which native Americans are a majority of the population.
That depends on how you define “native Americans.” Most Mexicans and Central Americans have indigenous ancestry.
I think the pertinent definition would be along the lines of identifying most strongly with their precolonial native tribe.
Being a fan of freedom and self determination rather than a leftist autocrat, I’ve always been a fan of the principle that borders should fit the requirements of people, rather than people having to submit to arbitrary borders.
A lot of the civil wars and poverty around the world is a result of peoples who have had a long and historical hatred for each other having been thrown into the same bed. Once the borders are redrawn along the lines that people (rather than the powerful) want them, peace usually arrives. There have been quite a few examples – such as the former Yugoslavia – recently.
“A lot of the civil wars and poverty around the world is a result of peoples who have had a long and historical hatred for each other having been thrown into the same bed. ”
This is true but it does not always have to be the case. The USA is the perfect example of historical enemies living as brothers and sisters. It didn’t just happen though, it was a conscious decision by immigrants to adopt a common culture different than their previous one.
There is nothing genetic preventing Sunni, Shia, and Kurd from living in peace. The failure in Iraq was not a military one but rather a diplomatic failure to bring these groups together. It isn’t just an American failure, it is also a failure of the Iraqi people who are the overall losers.
I am not certain that partitioning would be more peaceful if these groups still hate each other and would fight over historical grievances. Populations have been mobile and borders and allegiances have changed so many times over the last couple thousand years that they all have conflicting claims to land.
If the Iraqis want to partition their country into smaller states by peaceful and democratic methods that is their right. I do not see much evidence that this is a likely outcome.
Isn’t it also their right to do it by violent methods? If not, who’s going to stop them? I think the word “right” here is sort of (to use a recent favored word), problematic. No one would care (at least not enough to actually do much about it) if the outcome didn’t have a huge potential impact on our own national security.
Could Iraq be partitioned? Sure but it could also remain intact. Would these groups have less animosity for each other if they all had their own countries? Not unless there was significant and long term diplomatic efforts to remove those animosities and it goes beyond just the distribution of resources.
Iraq remaining intact also requires diplomatic efforts sustained over a long period of time.
Either way could work but neither will just happen and be magically peaceful.
Had Iraq been partitioned, we could be sitting here today arguing how the war between Turkey, Syria, Iran, Kurdistan, Western Iraq, and Eastern Iraq never would have happened if we kept the country intact or if more diplomatic effort was expended to deal with inequalities of resource distribution and regional hatreds.
People who choose to live at peace with neighboring countries could also choose to live at peace in one country. Or under either scenario, they can choose to fight each other.
Democracy works when the people vote as individuals, it doesn’t work when they vote as tribes or in similar blocks (unless there’s a lot of really small blocks) in Iraq it’s too easy to stir people up to vote along religious lines.
“People who choose to live at peace with neighboring countries could also choose to live at peace in one country. Or under either scenario, they can choose to fight each other.”
People will act like people, some folks think that all that’s needed is the right leadership, for me it always comes down the having the right system, put simply: a free competitive market in all things, whether it’s commerce, spaceflight, running a country or whatever.
“Democracy works when the people vote as individuals, it doesn’t work when they vote as tribes or in similar blocks ”
Do we have your OK to attribute this quote to you in the future?
Yep, democracy only works when you have swing voters, that is, when they’re not block voting, you disagree?
Human nature dictates that people gravitate to people with similar views. Not having groups of people is impossible. Humans don’t exist on their own, they always have other people with them.
The trick in Iraq, would be getting people to vote for groups based on issues rather than literal tribal affiliations.
“Human nature dictates that people gravitate to people with similar views. Not having groups of people is impossible.”
You’re smarter than that, what counts is (to use the US as an example) that some people switch their vote between Republican and Democrat, would the US be a functioning democracy if so few people ever switched that the governing party would always win, no matter what their policies because their loyal voters were too scared to vote them out of power? That’s the situation that usually exists in non-functioning “democracies” no swing voters, everyone votes along tribal or religious lines, the result obviously that the disenfranchised become rebellious.
It’s not rocket science.
“People will act like people, some folks think that all that’s needed is the right leadership, for me it always comes down the having the right system,”
I agree and IMO, the failure in Iraq was not creating that system. That part requires a much longer commitment than the use of force, although the military has to be part of it. Obama seems to have recognized this belatedly. He spoke of people wanting better representation and a less corrupt government, which are true but also not the cause of the current conflict.
We were fighting Iranian proxy Shia militias in Iraq. For the most part, we had put them in a bottle and got them to stop fighting Syria’s Sunni proxies and massacring civilians. Obama thought a Shia dominated government was the cause of everything and while it was a problem, it wasn’t the root cause. But now, Obama is exacerbating what he claims the root problem is by having Shia militias under Iranian control fight ISIS.
I am not seeing how partition would solve any of the problems people claim it would. If Iraq was 3 separate countries right now, one of them would be overrun by ISIS, another would be under attack by ISIS, and the third would be rooting for both to lose. They would not be working together to fight off ISIS.
Radicals get support when people feel disenfranchised. ISIS wouldn’t have come about if the people supporting it hadn’t felt marginalized. Same thing happens (anger at the system) with minorities that are disaffected in working democracies, but not to the same extent.