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The End of the Partitioning Strategy
Eleven month ago I wrote:
The discussion within the U.S. foreign policy establishment on the future of Iraq has come to a conclusion. The U.S. will, now officially, work to dissolve the Iraqi nation and state into three independent statelets under a powerless sham national government and, of course, total U.S. control.
That opinion was based on leaks about the Iraq Study Group report, which emphasized partition.
The implementation of that strategy started this year’s spring when the U.S. military began to pay off local tribal folks, warlords and highway robbers, to ‘pacify’ Anbar province.
The U.S. media never acknowledged the 180 degree turn from national government support to partitioning. Bush essentially faked them with his purported escalation (surge) reason of giving space for national consolidation. While everybody watched Maliki, the military was building private Sunni armies and the Kurds started to sell off their oil to U.S. companies to gain economic independence.
The usual media pundits never acknowledged the new strategy. The first, crow eating admission of the partitioning scheme came by neocon Charles Krauthammer last week:
A weak, partitioned Iraq is not the best outcome. We had hoped for much more. Our original objective was a democratic and unified post-Hussein Iraq. But it has turned out to be a bridge too far.
The Democrats have no intent to stop the implementation of this part of the bipartisan ISG report. Therefore they will agree to prolong the escalation. But they like Krauthammer will have to eat more crows because partitioning is also a few bridges too far:
Gunmen blew up two bridges on the highway near 160km region west of Ramadi on Friday morning using explosive charges," … The incident raises to five the number of bridges which have been destroyed on the highway in Anbar since the beginning of 2007.
The systematic destruction of bridges is not local infighting or some Al Qaida activity, but strategic preparation for the coming decisive battle against the occupation force. Despite the recent propaganda, Anbar is certainly not pacified. This year the US took 152 casualties there, 18 of those since August 1.
While Bush smirks to Anbar Sheik Sattar Abu Risha, that guy certainly has his own agenda. It is unlikely to be a U.S. friendly one. Partitioning Iraq has no advantage for him.
Baghdad has been cleansed of most Sunnis. They will want it back. They will take the millions the U.S. is pushing to them right now and when the ‘surge’ ends for lack of troops, they will make their move.
Your text, b, is not very clear. I thought from the title that you felt that the idea of partition had come to an end, but the text seems to say that a secret plan for partition has now been revealed.
As you say, what people think in Washington, and what they think in Iraq are two completely different things. And indeed what they think in Erbil and in Baghdad are again two different things.
I think the problem for those in Washington is that many there think that if they decide to impose partition on Iraq, it is possible to do it. The parliament in Baghdad would have to vote it, and like the oil law, I can tell you they will not do it.
It is not correct to divide Iraq into three parts, Shi’a, Sunni and Kurd. It is more correct to divide it in two: Kurds and non-Kurds. The Kurds, sooner or later will wander off on their own, they don’t have much interest in the rest of Iraq, and their only real issue is to obtain the best borders and resources. and maybe conceal their independence in order not to annoy the Turks and and Iranians.
The rest, I can tell you from my long experience of the country, want to remain Iraqi and to remain together. I know lots of Iraqis, and not one desires partition. They feel Iraqi and they like their country.
You know it is easy for the US – let us say it, say the truth – to whip up internal conflict. If the US pulled out, serious sectarian conflict would disappear on the day after, or maybe a couple of days. Though obviously the country is divided into feudal militias. There would be a bust-up, al-Qa’ida members would be strung up from the nearest trees, and then they would sort themselves out.
It is certain that those in Washington who favour partition – they have been there for ages, partition is a natural end-point of an artificially stimulated internal conflict – do not understand the real politics in Iraq. They have been told by idiots like Peter Galbraith (“The end of Iraq”) that no Iraq exists. Actually Galbraith is a paid agent of the Kurds, and has an agenda. Others, I fear, are academic specialists in modern ME politics, who never read the history of Iraq earlier than the late 19th century, when Iraq was divided under the Ottomans. So it is a misconception on the part of the “Deciders”. The question is that, even if it is a misconception, can it still be pushed through by Washington? Personally I doubt it. There will be filibuster after filibuster in the Iraqi parliament. The US has not succeeded in pushing the oil law through yet. And the latest news from Baghdad is that the major Sunni grouping has agreed to go back to the parliament on condition that the oil law is further delayed.
Well, no doubt, the parliament will be suppressed, a dictator imposed (Allawi?), and the laws passed. I find that too unsubtle even for the United States. But maybe. The problem with Democracy is that once public opinion has been expressed, it is difficult to go back on it, and undo an election. In the old days you could (e.g. Mossadegh in 1953), but not so easy today. It would be obviously the US doing it, as they are the occupying power in Baghdad.
So, I don’t know, partition is a danger, the Kurds will partition themselves, but perhaps not fully. But the others very unlikely. Washington is dreaming.
Posted by: Alex | Sep 9 2007 22:06 utc | 4
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