Is there any possibility that the Kurds and Shi'ites won't control at least their own areas ?

It seems to me that if they thought that they would not, they'd respond with force, and since there's no national force to array against them, wouldn't they be able to maintain military superiority in their own areas ?

Dominate

Disbanding the Iraqi army, which many critics have stated is Bush's biggest mistake, actually removed a potential Sunni route to power. At worst the Shiites will control their own area. My hope is that they'll have the stones to dominate the Sunni areas as well and will minimize Iranian influence.

Leading to the natural three-fold division of Iraq into Kurdistan in the north, the Sunni central region, and the Shia south.

"The single most important thing that must be done in this whole process is to make sure that the Kurds and Shi'a dominate at least their regions if not the entire government"

Partition is an ackowledgement of the failure neo-con strategy.Whatever arises in Iraq is highly unlikely to be very pro-american.

Noone, have we just added another piece to the "neocon strategy". A unitarian Iraq that is not a puppet but is pro-American. Many on this board would probably qialify as neocons (even if never having been liberals, or even Jewish, gasp!), and we were always quite happy with the idea that idea that three entities could be quite a suitable outcome. (In fact, I am sure the US is behind this mostly because it appears to be the least "changed" state.) Also, how much pro-American is considered a failure? More than France, and we have hit a home run.

OJ
I agree with your post today. Nuff said

The November 2003 thread you reference, got into a different area in that it was suggesting an agressive Shiastan, Kurdistan "driving" the Sunni into Kuwait etc. So what has happenned in the last 6 months as regards Bush Administration? Are they leaning towards 3-state or are they as confused as I am. The distribution of the Oil revenues will be determintive of whether there is War resulting from a partition.

jd:

Why would they leave a Sunni state there?

h:

The Administration thinks Iraq will be Switzerland. It won't be.

noone:

What MG said, plus, as oj continually points out, whatever happens in the next 18 months might not accurately reflect what the next twenty years will look like...

The worst acceptable outcome was that Iraq stop organized, large scale aggression against her neighbors.
That seems likely to occur, regardless of whether Iraq stays in one piece, or breaks into two, three, or four areas.

This is where the failure of the administration to plan and put in place a federalist system from the beginning now hurts. They could have had state-level elections in Kurdish and Shi'ite areas long before now, and limited the national government to national defense and distribution of oil money.

MG and "Neo"

Don't put words in my mouth or your foot in yours.

"whatever happens in the next 18 months might not accurately reflect what the next twenty years will look like"

true,but I want to see the guarntee on OJ's crystal ball before I buy into his prophecy.

"the failure of the administration to plan"

Not true,the tickertape parade down Baghdad's version of Wall St. was given the highest priority.

"The worst acceptable outcome was that Iraq stop organized, large scale aggression against her neighbors"

which Iraq hasn't been capable of doing since that little to-do back in '91.

Look,boys and girls,I supported the war,but denying that the Bush admin failed to properly anticipate many of these problems and greatly exageratred the gratitude of Iraqis is just silly,we're rationing rifle ammo,for G-d's sake!

I'm all for the Kurds dominating in their region and will gladly support the dismantling of Iran, Russia and Turkey to obtain it.