Editorial
Splitting Iraq up in three?
Not an option at all
It is not difficult to make out the level of US despondency with the current situation in Iraq. That is demonstrated in the recently passed non-binding Senate resolution calling for Iraq to be divided into three semi-autonomous regions along sectarian and ethnic lines.
Continued US presence in Iraq is becoming increasingly unprofitable in terms of the strategic dividends that it was expected to provide the Bush administration with. And there is plainly a divide in the Congress as to the future course of action since the surge in US troops that commenced in Feb 2007 has not provided the results the US planners thought it would.
Division of Iraq is the worst of all the options and certainly cannot be an alternative of either the 'cut or run' or 'stay the course' alternative as enunciated in the Baker-Hamilton Report. No wonder that the Shias and the Sunnis have reacted adversely to such a proposal. We feel that opting for such a choice reveals what many feel is the underlying motive behind 'Operation Iraqi Freedom', which is leave Iraq a truncated country with divided resources and dependence on the US.
We feel that such a plan has the seeds of unmitigated bloodshed and perennial conflict within the Iraqi communities. Even for the Kurds, who are the only ethnic group to support a formal division of Iraq, although the division will allow them to retain a large chunk of the oil producing region of the country, a semi-independent Kurd region has wider regional implications that may make its existence uncomfortable.
It is just as well that the Bush administration has distanced itself from the resolution. However, the world waits to see how it will fulfill its goal 'of evolving a united, democratic, federal Iraq that can govern, defend and sustain itself.'
The US ought to keep in mind that it is for the people of Iraq to choose the future of their country, and no right thinking Iraqi even at this time of their painful existence would like to see his or her country split.
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