My sense that partition, however ugly that is, is the likely future of Iraq short of some external control--US stays because of oil interests or whatever, is built on the following.
First, it is a creation of the settlements after WWI; second, it's been held together subsequently by a very strong, even brutal central government; third, the oil is in the north and the south but the country has been controlled by the Sunnis in the center which, absent a strong central government, will certainly change; fourth, it's hard to tell, but unlikely, whether there is a strong sense of national identity which overcomes regional or ethnic/religous identities; fifth, should matters progress as they are going now, there will be large incentives for the Bush administration to "declare victory and get out" which increases the centripetal pull factors without a strong centrifugal one; and sixth there must be enormous hatreds directed toward Saddam supporters by both the Kurds in the north and Shiites in the south and center.
A recipe for a very, very bloody civil war. |
