Watching the news this weekend confirms - if it needed confirming - that the Sunnis, Kurds and Shi’ites are simply three, unrelated tribes thrown together by Britain’s border creation activities after World War 1 who have no desire to live with each other if they can possibly avoid it.
With the world’s recent history showing that some states kept together by fear - the USSR and Yugoslavia, for example - will try to go their seperate ways when given even a glimmer of a chance one cannot be overly surprised should the various tribes of the Iraqi state seek to take advantage of the present situation and make a break for independence.
The draft constitution was mainly a Kurdish/Shi’ite creation, handed to the Sunnis on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. The Sunnis may very well leave it - with serious consequences for the region’s coalition rulers.
An Iraq partitioned along its ethnic and cultural groupings might create a far simpler scenario for the US to administer. And a simpler, more stable region requires fewer troops - an ideal domestic sweetener for President Bush.
Almost all countries have internal groupings either separated by religion or culture. Historically Sunnis got the better half of divide and conquer and now have to work out how to handle their reduced situation. Its just a bargaining process, they don’t hate each other.
If Oliver Cromwell had asked losing catholic royalists to form their own country, we would be a very different place.
Comment by DE — August 30, 2005 @ 12:45 pm
The proposed federal set-up might work out but, of course, the Shi’ites may b encouraged by Iran to go for a bigger slice of the action… It’s like living in an over-crowded house in the middle-east. Everyone gets involved in everyone else’s business and there are all sorts of vested interests with countries not directly involved in the affair.
I guess we’ll wait and see.
GM
Comment by Gary Monro — August 30, 2005 @ 5:21 pm