Saturday, November 11, 2006
The Case for Dividing Iraq
In the November 13 Time magazine, Peter Galbraith, long an advocate of Kurdish rights and a supporter of dividing Iraq, develops the argument for division once again. He argues that there never was a unified Iraq. It was created out of several Ottoman Provinces, a process that illegitimately placed the Sunnis in charge of the country. He further argues that as the war has progressed the de facto division of the country has become ever clearer. The Kurds have separated themselves from the rest and 98% of them want a separate state of their own, and, unless crushed by outsiders, they will surely obtain this objective. There is a clause in the Constitution that allows the country to divide into all but autonomous states. Parliament recently advanced the date at which this could occur. Once at this point, the Sunnis and Shi'a might decide for their own reasons to stay together. It would be up to them.
Galbraith makes an interesting point that the former Turkish opposition to the idea of a Kurdish state seems to have eased. Both and the Kurdish enclave are more secular and more democratic than any of their neighbors. Today Turkey accounts for most of the investment in Kurdistan. In a divided country, it would be the major trade outlet for the Kurds to the rest of the world.
As he sees the present situation, the central government is unable to control its own military and police forces and the United States is unable to force it to. So in his mind, accepting the reality that exists on the ground would be a first and necessary step for a "successful" American withdrawal. The Shi'a and Kurds would get nearly all the discovered oil reserves in a division. But the old Baathist elements in the resistance would now be able to turn their attention to recovering control of at least the Sunni area. They are as unhappy with the extreme Islamist groups as we are; our leaving would make possible their reemergence as more than just anti-American terrorists. The Shi'a in the south would be able to turn their attention to controlling al-Sadr and the Mahdi army, or at least developing some way to divide up the power with them.
The Galbraith solution is undoubtedly attractive. But there are several holes in it. The most important is the mixed nature of the population in many areas. ToGalbraith, Baghdad is divided between Mahdi Army dominated ares and areas dominated by Sunni militia. Actually, the information I have suggests the picture is much more complicated than that. In addition, several provinces to the north and south of the city are intricately divided betwen the two sects. In the Mosul and Kirkuk areas, Kurdish demands for more control have yet to be met. Kurdish leaders are unlikely to back down until they place these cities and their environs under Kurdish control. Our departure could easily be a signal for a bitter campaign of "ethnic cleansing" here, from both sides, attack and counterattack, with no clear end in sight.
As I interpret Galbraith, he is saying that we should make it clear to leaders of all parties that we no longer will oppose their plans to federalize the country. We should then negotiate widely with the parties involved, helping them to stabilize the lines of confrontation between them. Instead of simply saying that the central military and police forces must take over from our forces before we leave, we will be saying that a much wider spectrum of forces will be assisted in an attempt to stabilize their areas of nominal control in preparation for our departure.
One idea to add to Galbraith's argument is that we should, perhaps clandestinely, offer a Sunni federal region (or later state) an agree upon and substantial subsidy for the next ten years. This would be meant explicitly to take the place of what they would lose in oil revenues through federalization. Sunni leaders will not easily trust either the United States or their partners in a dissolving Iraq, but at least this offer would give them some hope that the state they would be taking over could stand by itself. If we do not make the offer or do not live up to it over time, and if negotiations with the rest of the country fail to give them their share, then Sunni leaders, many of whom represent in many cases the former military and civil service, may well launch a violent effort to create a new Iraq that mirrors the old, with Sunnis in charge. The fact they may make up only 20% of the population is not decisive. Many smaller minorities have managed to rule their states for many years (witness the Tutsi in Rwanda and Burundi).
Galbraith is not making any great claims for his "solution", only that recognizing reality earlier rather than later will be to everyone's advantage.
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