To begin with, I will admit that although I have been following the activities surrounding Iraq, and have an opinion as the whether or not the US should have invaded it, I have relatively little knowledge about its history and its people.
What sparse (and perhaps flawed) knowledge I do have, brings me to the understanding that:
A) Geographically, Iraq consists of around 3 different “tribes” or cultures or political views.
B) Iraq has had disputes with most of its neighbors over its history.
Given this, and how futile and expensive it seems to successfully install a new regime, why hasn’t the idea of dissolving this conquered country into its neighboring lands. Based on geography, culture, past border disputes, past debts to other countries (like Kuwaiti) and other socio-economic factors wouldn’t it be easier to dismantle and perhaps “sell off (or use as leverage) shares” to its neighboring countries and then be done with it?
Couldn’t land be used as a bargaining chip against Iran and our interests in their nuclear policy for instance?
Each country would get their piece of the pie and we would get out.
What am I missing beside “who would control the oil?” ?
I’m sure my thoughts are based on my own misinformation or ignorance so point out to me why it wouldn’t be better for (the people of) Iraq and all the surrounding countries?
Well, I’m no political scientist, but the one that comes to mind first is:“why should the surrounding countries take in the Iraqi’s?”
And look at our supreme example of displacing a nation of people–hasn’t helped the Palestinians one bit(or the Israeli’s, come to that).
Also, people tend to be attached to their country/place–witness the people in CA, who live on unstable, dangerous land and refuse to move, even as it slides into the sea…
You might think that about Ireland, but it doesn’t work because SI thinks it needs NI, and not everyone who cares about the issue lives in the half they ‘should’. India and Pakistan were split, in some ways successfully, but that border is… scary. It’s not an automatic solution.
I should think the Iraqis might not be best pleased, as Demorian said.
Let me ask you something - what would you think if an invading foreign power told you that your country was to be “liquidated” and all the people and assets of your country were to be absorbed by your neighbours.
What would you think? Would you argue?
I thought that one of the reasons there was an insurgence was because of how divided Iraqis are politically, culturally and religiously. They don’t seem to have their house in order for a country with any semblance of patriotism.
I thought that was the whole problem. I thought that each part of the country feels that they won’t have representation.
Who is the insurgence? Are they patriots? Al Quada, different factions?
Are you telling me that the insurgence is comprised of outsiders and the citizenry at large is hoping for peaceful elections?
I don’t know. I just can’t seem to piece all this together.
That might depend. Without dragging American politics into it too much I don’t always feel that the combined electoral votes that the south have generally work in my favor.
Seriously though, It would depend on the state of affairs in my country at the time. If my country was in complete tumult and my community has more in common with its closest bordering country than it does with its own country, the answer might be simpler than you think.
Where can I get information on the Iraqi perspective on this (besides Al Jezera)?
They don’t seem to discuss polls of Iraqi citizens much in the news. I’d suspect that they’re already the last consideration in the entire equation in the first place.
if you tried to draw lines and split it, however much sense that might seem to make, you’d just have palestine-cubed in no time at all. displaced /occupied people never just sit down and shut up.
Quite the opposite. A good chunk (no one knows how much) of the insurgency is fighting for “an independent Iraq” - they simply view any American-imposed government as invalid.
They do. But they’d rather have their own lot in life than be occupied by America.
All of the above, and then some.
The insurgency is largely Iraqis with outside support. Most of the citizens are not insurgents, but most of the insurgents are citizens (or former army people).
Yes, the general popular is hoping for peaceful elections. Then they want that peacefully elected government to kick us out.
The odds of it being a peaceful election with a good outcome are pretty slim, though.
I don’t think selling off portions of Iraq to the highest bidder is going to be a viable solution. The biggest reason is that the Iraqi’s themselvse would have something so say about it. The other one is that partitioning of the ME by the British and the Europeans is how we got into the mess we are in in the first place.
Slightly more viable would be to divide Iraq into 3 smaller, separate and sovereign nations along those tribal lines. This has been proposed on this board several times, and while I doubt it would fly with the Iraqi’s either, its better than trying to sell off or give away the land to other sovereign nations in the region.
Better yet we could find the balls to stick it out…since we fucked it up in the first place. Its call ‘responsibility’…we broke it, we bought into fixing it. At least until it becomes appearent that it can’t be fixed. Because make no mistake…if the US and our allies there in Iraq can’t fix it to the point its at least stable then all hell will break loose in Iraq. You might THINK its bad now…its nothing like it will be if the US pulls out and leaves the Iraqi’s to face the music.
The OP states that Iraq is made of up three tribes. This is way far off the mark. Iraq is made up of dozens of clans or tribes, which often compete against each other for power, status, etc. The idea that the Shiites, the Sunni, and the Kurds are the only coherent groups is an oversimplification when it comes to radical ideas like the one posited. The tribes or clans that exist within these three groupings carry powerful allegiences that prevent the groupings from acting as coherent subnational actors.
Also there is the matter of practical politics. Take, for example, the Kurdish areas in the North. There is a Kurd minorty in Turkey, but there’s no goddamn chance that Turkey would want more Kurds. If anything, the chances of a Kurdish state breaking off from Turkey and joining Iraqi Kurds is more likely, but for complex reasons that I’d rather not explain for the sake of brevity, this would only happen over the Turkish government’s dead body. The Kurds hate Turkey, too. There is zero chance of Turkey absorbing Northern Iraq.
As far as the Sunnis go, Jordan is the closest state to the Sunni-dominated areas, and Jordanians only care about Iraqis so far as they are fellow Arabs. In fact, I’m told that Jordanians rather look down on Iraqis. Since Jordan has already absorbed a very substantial population of Palestinians, I can’t see a snowball’s chance of Jordan wanting to take in Iraqis.
As far as the Shiites go, I can’t imagine that anything more than a minority would would to join up with Iran. The Iranians are not Arabs, for one thing… oh, and there was that whole matter of a war with them a while back. Further, there’d be no incentive for Shiites, who are likely to dominate Iraqi politics for the foreseeable future (if Iraq is ever stabilized) to give up that power to join a bunch of zealots over in Iran.
Riverbend is an Iraqi woman in Baghdad who meters about “average” for Iraqis on most issues, and she’s good at expressing it. However, her point of view is that of a person in Baghdad, which is different than that from people elsewhere.
Juan Cole is a professer and recognized scholar about it all. His weblog leans pretty heavily against the war, but he is one of the best sources for translating the Iraqi situation for Americans.
Example:
Basically, everyone is fighting a several front war; the Iraqis fighting each other, the Iraqis fighting the Americans, the Iranians and Syrians sneaking in… it is a pretty big mess, and I don’t think elections will work.
Based on this poll the Iraqis do expect to stay together as a nation, although the poll only lightly touched that issue. They also seem to want us to leave despite the danger it’ll put them in.
Demorian , I do intend on checking out those links. Thank you.
So the information does seem to be out there and I guess It’s where you look.
The only thing that really sucks is that while I’m learning as much as I can about this, something else will be unfolding in the world that I’ll entirely miss until after the fact. And I’ll have to start all over again. This is where I think our media blows.
It is sad, but weblogs are frequently more informative and accurate than the media (American or otherwise)… they just lack that editorial oversight that prevents them from being news sources in and of themselves. But by reading a collection of them from varying viewpoints, you can piece together the puzzle.
Oh please? Riverbend? The Sunni who comes from a prominent family who used to be able to walk all over their compatriots because she belonged to a group which had prominence in the Baa’th Party? She whines because shes been kicked out and rightly so as well.
Heres a detailed disemination of Riverbends blog
Strange, I’ve done this numerous times, presented blogs by Iraqis who do believe in the ideas of liberty and freedom and are glad the americans liberated them, but somehow when I present these blogs they’re not taken seriously. However, when Riverbend is used as an example, people fall over themselves to think she is somewhat more right than her counterparts.
