Partition

The February 22nd bomb attack that destroyed the gilded dome of the 1000-year-old Shiite mausoleum of Iman Ali al-Hadi in Samarra, was the most graphic visual of the gilded political rubble the U.S. has created in Iraq, and also a sneak preview of the current civil war in Iraq. While Iraqi politicians and U.S. bureaucrats haggle over the formula of a national unity government, the repeated weekly suicide bombings of Shiite mosques remind us of how futile their effort to unite Iraq is.

Iraqis know that a unified Iraq is unsustainable for four reasons: history, religion, ethnicity and politics. They also know the appearance of unity will hasten the removal of U.S. and coalition troops.

The new constitution Iraq approved on October 15, 2005 created three de facto states ─ Shiite in the south, Kurdish in the north, and Sunni in the center. Local laws are superior to national law. The Shiites in the south and the Kurds in the north will own newly discovered oil reserves ─ which are in the Shiite south and Kurdish north. The only remaining issue is the revenue share formula for the Sunnis share of the oil revenues.

Most of the armed and police forces being trained by the U.S. led coalition forces are Shiite and Kurds. The more the U.S. military hands over prematurely to “Iraqis,” the more it will be handing over to Shia and Kurdish militia members that are bent more on advancing ethnic and religious interests than on defeating the insurgency or preserving national unity.
To think that the Kurds and Shiites in Iraq can forget their history and embrace the Sunnis in one central government is delusional and defies reality. Ultimately, the deep, vindictive ethnic and religious factions will fracture the government and country. Nationalism, as manifested by Kurds, Sunni and Shiite Arabs, is no different than the nationalism expressed by the new democratic republics that were part of the former Soviet Union, the Serbs, Croats and Macedonians in Yugoslavia, or the Czechs and Slovaks in Czechoslovakia. The World War I remnants of the Austria-Hungary Empire are no different than Iraq, itself a remnant of the Ottoman Empire.

The artificial borders of Iraq were created by its British colonial overlord to facilitate domination and control of the oil and can only be enforced by an oppressive authoritarian regime. The colonial borders must disappear for democracy to flourish as was the case in the former Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Likewise Iraq will have to be divided into three separate countries to accommodate the Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites. Trying to keep them together in one democratic state ignores the religious and ethnic historical differences and grudges that have been temporarily put aside as they try to rid their collective tribal lands of the occupying infidels.
A democratic Kurdistan and democratic Sunni and Shiite states will do to Iran and the Middle East what glasnost did to Russia and democratic Eastern Europe. Iran’s mullahs, Syria’s Baathists and the royals in Saudi Arabia will go the way of the ruling elites in Romania, Poland, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.

America can create a lasting democratic model in Iraq for the Middle East. It has to install three democratic regimes and make sure they survive. It is important to avoid another U.S. foreign policy disaster. It would be a colossal catastrophe. America must deliver on its promises to the Iraqi people, America and the world. That is the only way America can extricate itself with honor with its “mission accomplished.” America cannot afford to fail in Iraq. If it does, it will be relegated to a 21st-century debt-burdened bankrupt – financially and politically.