Partitioning would require the United Nations. We do not have the right.
No hurt, no foul. I’m a little upset by this, probably overreacted. As well, the news that The Leader is considering “one more big push”… A whole lot of innocent people are about to die. And there is nothing you and I can do but watch in horror and bang futilely on this keyboard.
“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.” - Thomas Jefferson
Well, I think that Democrats have it exactly right on what we should do (if we sort of take the average of what they are saying). We need to tell the Iraqi goverment that we are going to start withdrawing our troops on X date (where X = soon), and they need to quit depending on us to prop them up. If the government falls, it falls. Maybe my quasi-benevolent strongman will arise from the ashes. I do think most Iraqis would welcome a firm hand at the top, if it restored a semblance of order.
The ‘government’ really doesn’t control much outside the Green Zone. In imposing a partition, one merely ignores the government.
The problem with a strongman is he’s got to be strong. Got someone on tap?
No, but two things the U.S. is capable of doing is protecting most of the travelers in a mass migration, and preventing the violation of partition borders by massed troops.
What are the borders of the partitioned segments of Iraq? As Elvis has pointed out, the de facto partitioning is already happening; we draw lines that roughly match the existing ethnic/sectarian distribution of the population, and tell everyone they’ve got six months to get their butts to the part of Iraq they want to live in permanently; after that, they’re on their own. That should minimize the imputed need for ethnic cleansing by any of the factions. Whatever fighting took place within each substate, it wouldn’t be about Sunni v. Shia, or Arab v. Kurd.
Even if you suspend the constutution entirely, do you have anyone capable of commanding amidst this chaos?
Strongmen generally have a functioning army behind them. Iraq doesn’t have one.
Receptive to democracy?! Haw haw haw haw haw!!! I’m just trying to minimize the number of circles of hell Iraq must pass through.
I see the logistics of strongmanism in Iraq quite differently than you. I see no chance whatsoever of finding a strongman or faction capable of ruling most of Arab Iraq, let alone the whole country. Zip. Nada.
My thought is it might be possible for some person or faction to attain a position of dominance over most of Sunni Arab Iraq, or over most or all of Shi’ite Iraq. Might.
If I thought it were possible to set up any sort of strongman over all of Iraq, I’d go for it in a heartbeat. But at this point, my considered opinion is that that’s way into magical pony territory, even without the ‘benevolent’ part that you keep tagging on, which elevates it to magical unicorn level.
At this point, we’ve been playing God over there for three years and eight months, and while we are the occupying power by the U.N.'s consent, that is only a flimsy pretext for having visited abominable violence and chaos on their country. In only the most narrow, legalistic sense can we be said to have had the right to do what we’ve already done.
If partition (or any other action we can effect) has the best chance of any alternative (within our power and will, that is) to reduce the future scale of the continuing catastrophe in Iraq, then legal niceties shouldn’t be considered an insurmountable obstacle.
Any alternatives that won’t guarantee unrest?
Hell, mere ‘unrest’ would be tremendous progress. But maybe John Mace’s benevolent pony can bring that about.
Speaking of John:
Same place it ends up in practically every scenario that doesn’t involve magical ponies: with Kurds and Sunni Arabs fighting over it.
Looks like the Kurds are currently winning that battle, so give it to them and let them see if they can hold it.
RTF: Rather than respond point by point to your post, let me point out that you are explicitly advocating ethnic cleansing, which is a war crime. Also, let me point out that there is no such thing as “Sunni Arab Iarq” or “Shiite Arab Iraq”. As someone who mocks my strongman as an “invisible pony”, you might want to think about that. As for where the strongman comes from, it’s usually they guy in charge of the army. There are many more examples in this world of a strongman coming to power than there are of succesful partitioning of states, btw.
n.b.: I’ve long said that the best we can hope for in Iraq is that a quasi-benevolent strongman comes to power. I neglected to use the term “quasi-benevolent” when I introduced that idea into this thread, and that was my mistake. For the record, I consider Musharrif to be an example (juxtaposed against someone like Kim Jong Il).
With whoever wins the fight for it, obviously
Strawman again. Nobody said it would.
Sigh … *what * army are you referring to? The people we’ve been training and arming to they can go back to their ethnic guerrilla forces better able to take up the fight? Are you under some kind of impression that there not only is an Iraqi army ready to fight them all and reunite the country, but that it’s actually going to be able to do so? Where is it - out riding their invisible ponies?
If you so steadfastly refuse to discuss reality, there’s really no value in clogging up threads with this stuff, amigo.
The Mahdi Army’s (vid) been kicking ass for a while now. I think they’ve got a shot.
Let me point out that there are multiple definitions of “ethnic cleansing” and some are war crimes, but some aren’t. Please to give a cite that the nonviolent program I advocate, with the intent of minimizing the possibility of the sort of violent, coercive ethnic cleansing going on already in Iraq, is a war crime.
Thought it was clear from context that I was referring to the post-partition states. Lacking names, I have referred to them by their attributes.
No, a “magical pony.” Not to be confused with the “Invisible Pink Unicorn.” Can’t see any reason to stop mocking your fantasy strongman.
Well, yeah. But you can’t just throw together something overnight, call it an army, then put some doofus in charge of it, and think he’s strongman material. That’s not how it works.
But give me an example like this one where it’s happened: where the head of an army built from scratch by a foreign power in just a couple of years has managed to do the strongman bit successfully.
I really doubt that there are any examples of that at all, and that’s a rather key difference. Usually the army has been a going concern for years, decades, or generations; usually the strongman has been in the army, or its commander, for some time.
A pony’s still a pony, friend. I’ve been saying all along that the “benevolent” part was simply icing on this particular cake, and that the fundamental problem was the lack of reason to be able to expect anyone to control most of Arab Iraq.
I don’t suppose there’s any chance that al-Sistani guy might pull a Ghandi?
What country would honor partitions we put up.? The middle easterners don’t have a lot of respect for our moral authority. Might does not always make right. It would require an international decision and that is far from the thought processes of the nations of the world. Iraq for better or worse had a degree of nationalism which must be tapped if any kind of peace is possible.
; It has not fallen into a 3 way battle. The warlords are raiding. It is local and not necessarily all about religion.Many of the marauders are just looters seizing an opportunity.It will sadly have to sort itself out. Many more deaths are on the horizon.
RTF: Well. it’s obvious at this point that you’re not reallly interested in reasoned debate, but would rather just make fun of anyone who disagrees with you. I’ll let you continue the debate with Elvis, who seems to be the only one who agrees with your thesis. Enjoy!
To sum up:
You’ve been claiming that the best alternative for Iraq is a benevolent strongman.
I’ve been claiming that it’s unrealistic to expect to find any sort of strongman who could be able to control Iraq at this point, between Iraq’s ethnic/sectarian divisions, the level of chaos, and the devolving of power down to smaller and smaller militias. And the ‘benevolent’ part was simply icing on the cake off unreality.
You responded that you really should have said “quasi-benevolent”, as if that should have made a difference. I pointed out that that change was immaterial to my argument.
You also said that there were numerous instances of strongmen taking over countries such as this.
I concurred that strongmen had taken over lots of countries, but doubted that one had ever succeeded in controlling most of a country that’s in the situation Iraq finds itself in - devolving rapidly into chaos, little central government authority, an army newly created from scratch, and no general with any track record with that army.
And you’re responding that I’m “not reallly interested in reasoned debate.”
Oh.
What does it matter? I’m not talking about preserving diplomatic niceties; I’m talking about doing what we can to limit the scale of violence of the sort that’s already happening, and will undoubtedly escalate as we leave.
Then they and I have something in common.
True.
No, it wouldn’t.
Diplomatic recognition of the three substates would require decisions by members of the international community. That’s a bit down the road. First let’s keep the patient from going to code; later we’ll worry about getting the cure certified if it succeeds to any extent.
We’ve been trying for three years. How’s it working out?
No, it’s fallen into assorted one-way battles, as each faction tries to cleanse ‘their’ areas of Iraq of members of the other factions, in places where they’re clearly stronger. And occasionally you get an actual 2-way battle, between Sunni Arabs and Kurds, between Sunni Arabs and Shi’ite Arabs, and between factions within the three main factions, such as between Badr and Sadr militias in Basra this year.
All too true. And it’s the chaos that allows them to thrive.
One point of mine all along is that, within each of the three pieces of Iraq, one sub-faction or another might be able to win out, dominate its rivals (be they religious factions, criminal gangs, warlords, whatever), and create some sort of basic order. In Iraq as a whole, nobody is likely to win out for a long, long time, if ever.
At the end, it seems your argument comes down to, we don’t have the right to partition Iraq, so we should stand aside and let them all kill each other.
I don’t find that to be persuasive.
I forgot one:
You said the partition I was proposing was ethnic cleansing, which you say is a war crime.
I pointed out that there are multiple definitions of ethnic cleansing, and asked for a cite to support your claim that what I was proposing was a war crime.
Your response is that I’m not interested in reasoned debate.
Whatever.
Stand aside and let them kill each other. We have been doing that a long time. We hide behind the green zone and let them slug it out everyday.The American deaths have not escaled like the Iraqi deaths.
We made no attempt to tap into nationalism. We immediately dismantled the entire system, disbanded the army and set up a quasi capitalistic take over of the resources. These factions had a history of living in peace. We screwed that up.
The Iraqis do not know who funds the military groups. They don’t wear uniforms or identify themselves.
True, and disgusting.
OK, what would have an “attempt to tap into nationalism” looked like?
True, but I don’t see how you’re connecting this with anything. As a matter of fact, all I see from you is a string of assertions, rather than an argument.
No, these factions had a history of living under Saddam. Admittedly, we screwed that up by taking him away and replacing him with something far worse.
But the Iraqis haven’t for a long time been free to voluntarily get along or not. There is no recent pre-war measure of the factions’ history (or lack of one) of living in peace.
They probably figure the funding’s coming from us. We’re the ones who are creating their army and police forces.
The country was a functioning state. Every one was aware of Sadaam but people went to work and school and the regular Iraqi was relatively safe. They married across religion .
The nationalism would have required maintaining the systems that actually worked. The police and court systems for instance. They actually could have helped the Iraqis maintain an identity rather than being expected to knuckle under occupiers.
The Iraqis I read say they do not know who the raiders are or who funds. They speculate Iran and Saudi Arabia.
I am surprised you are unable to connect the dismantling of the systems with the following chaos.
Iraq should be a Federalist country with the seat of power in Baghdad, and since I’ve been reading about what’s going on on the ground, it’s the only way to go. Partition of the areas would just lead to a Yugoslavia style civil war/breakup, only this time with Western troops up to there neck in the fighting of opposing sides. Which would result in another barrage of shit in which we’d have to clean up all over again.
And since there has been no history of Iraqis having the choice of liking there co-religionists, this aftermath is basically the drawing of the lines and political map of what will be either the future Iraq or post Iraq. We can’t stop this, and we couldn’t even if we tried. All we can do is stand back, try to limit the violence, and see if they can work it out, how long this will take I don’t know.
Since I started my new job, I got to know a few of the security guards at the place, a few of them have been to Iraq on 6 month tours in Basra, and collectively what I got from them was that the Police were corrupt untrustworthy assholes, however, the Iraqi Army was respected and somewhat more professional and dedicated to protecting the country. So bearing that in mind, this strikes me with some confidence that we can leave and not have the country collapse into a major civil war.