THE SUBOPTIMAL INEVITABLE:

Dividing Iraq might multiply problems (JAROSLAV TIR AND PAUL F. DIEHL, 11/24/06, Chicago Sun-Times)

As efforts to stabilize Iraq fail and the Iraq Study Group ponders new directions in U.S. policy, partitioning that country into separate Kurdish, Shiite, and Sunni mini-states has been advanced as a panacea that will resolve conflict and allow U.S. troops to withdraw. In reality, however, the likely outcomes are far less certain, with potential for both conflict de-escalation and expansion.

Our research indicates that the best time to divide a country along ethnic or religious lines is before tensions escalate to civil war or large-scale violence. Since 1900, mini-states that emerge from peaceful breakups of countries have a 95 percent success rate in avoiding militarized confrontations with each other.

The bad news is that the optimal time to partition Iraq has passed. The months soon after Saddam Hussein's removal from power in 2003 -- that is, before Iraqi politics came to be dominated by extremist leaders advocating sectarian violence -- provided a window of opportunity for dividing the Iraqi state. Of course, partitioning the country while things appeared to be going well did not seem necessary.

The partition scenario that now faces Iraq is not as desirable as it once was, but neither is it hopeless.

Kurdistan in particular should have been recognized as an independent state before hostilities resumed in '03.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 24, 2006 11:30 AM