And we develop that trust because a) we sense the experience behind a position and b) we see it as dynamic. Yo.

The trouble with partition is the question of oil. Without it, the various states are nothing but an agricultural economy with a growing population. So the divisions have to allow everyone access both to oil and a means of getting it to market. It may also be that control of the rivers would be important too.

There may be something instructive about the withdrawal from Vietnam. The Americans made deals about support and reparations but did not adhere to them (if I remember rightly) so Vietnam did it hard and remained in control of hardliners as a result.

If we all leave Iraq by saying a) we will withdraw militarily and b) we will provide infrastructure support of a purely non-military form – hospitals, roads, electricity – that engages the Iraqis where possible, then there is a strong incentive for the future government(s) to be engaged with the west.

To me the whole tragedy is the collapse of a secular Iraq – that Saddam for all his evil, was building an educated middle class and growing the non-theocratic strands of the culture. The question for the future is: how do we support that, given our role in Iraq is so devalued?

Because in a sense the Bush fedayeen were right on the absolutely broadest level. The planet needs the growth of secular Islam so the one billion Muslims can find ways forward. As we needed to develop a non-theocratic way of building states in the west, and fortunately found it.

And we do need access to the oil.

There’s nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow line and dead armadillos …

I first read it here many springs ago, Ken, and now the Common Nightmare of Horror is plagiarising …

Proud to be a Dead Armadillo

[Sound like the news of armadillos death have been premature – (mature smile)

I think we should just get out and leave them to it. Who the hell do we think we are ‘dictating’ to a very educated populus where their territorial boundaries should be? This sounds way to imperalistic for my liking. We may need their oil, and sure if we’re really nice maybe one day they’ll flog us some. Who’s oil is it?

Invading Iraq was wrong, is wrong and will always be wrong. The whole operation was based on lies and deceit, with unmitigated greed as the only compelling factor. Its an ongoing, mess and all occupying forces should simply leave. Iraq will never negotiate with the Americans, sane Iraqis will forever consider the US to be their greatest enemy – as they should and sadly we are part and parcel of the good ole US. The best the US can do is compensate Iraq for the damage they’ve done and support the UN who should be sent in as peace keepers. Imposing curfews and outlawing weapons would be a good start to achieving peace. How can you impose democracy at gunpoint? It is a nonsense.

What makes you think that the Iraqis would be interested in more foreign troops? Or, that the Arab bloc would be interested in supporting a UN imposed solution? How successful has the UN been in Sudan? How would you impose a curfew? Who would ‘outlaw weapons’ and how would it be enforced?

OK point taken, so just pull-out, (and leave a big cheque) Where’s the great harm there then?

Only a few provinces are seriously affected by fighting — the majority of the country is already stable. It takes years to set up a democratic society, but it can be and has been done, as Japan and Germany bear witness.

In this age of instant gratification, too many people are inclined to throw in the towel just because things are not perfect within a few months.

At the moment, the Left is campaigning hard on the false idea that Iraq is a disaster, purely for political reasons. They are of course supported by their media wing. If you fall for their propaganda, then you will despair of a solution.

Plainly, the US-led invasion was the worst of all possible roads to take, and for undoubtedly the worst of all possible reasons. The West needs the oil because it’s cheap, but cheap in monetary terms only. Perhaps it’s time to start paying more for the resource and putting more into alternatives. There are oil reserves untapped because the cost of doing so is prohibitive in todays terms, but just when do we decide to amend todays terms? Is war over oil condonable because we want to keep the economic cost down?

All the while, Iraqi’s die in a tug-of-war over ideologies which mean nothing in the final wash-up. Fundamentalists from the Christian Right in the US push that government while Islamic fundamentalists push that same Christian Right in militaristic guise in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East. When will it cease? When the futility is realised.

So without the Americans, these Kurds, Sunni, Shia, former prime beneficiaries of Baathist fascism, returned exiles, the interests of Syria and Iran, all of these would just magically coalesce into an “unimposed” peaceful democratic solution – complete with weapons being beaten in ploughshares and voluntary curfews all round. Sounds like a winner to me Link.

Many of the police guys currently being blown up are suffering that fate at the hands of former Baathists who have a vested interest in not seeing peace emerge. And major malcontent Mohammed al Zarqawi, who has recently been depicted hacking people’s heads on TV, is actually not an Iraqi at all. He’s a Jordanian.

I think that invasion was ill-advised but withdrawal at this point would be worse.

Oh well, that’s OK then. Nothing like having the right motivation for inhuman behaviour. I’d really hate to be beheaded by a religious fanatic or have my detumescent prick laughed at by an uncouth female soldier (note the equivalence here). Much better to be one of the hundreds of thousands in mass graves. Feels so cosy with so much nice company.

Before the 1991 Gulf War, the Left said it would be a disaster, a quagmire, a grave for Americans and Australians.

Before the invasion of Afghanistan, the Left said it would be a disaster, a quagmire, a grave for Americans and Australians.

Before the invasion of Iraq, the Left said it would be a disaster, a quagmire, a grave for Americans and Australians.

Now they’re peddling the same old, same old, defeatist nonsense. And it’s just as accurate as ever.

Anything rather than admit that this is a vile, howling shambles which your side provoked, and prosecuted, and is busy blowing so badly the US will implode into isolationism.

Read this. Pay particular attention to the photographs by clicking on the buttons.

And this before this.

Of course once you believe that all meedja like AP and Reuters are controlled by mindwarping lib’rals, you are free to believe whatever fantasy you choose. We in Australia have a phrase for this – “cloud cuckoo land.”

Sure I’d like to see all foreigners pull out but the sad reality is that at this stage of the game, a blood bath is the most likely outcome.
I am glad you are at least thinking about alternatives.

I am not sure that splitting Iraq is the go. Some(most?) Iraqis and also neighbouring states -are keen to maintain Iraq’s integrity as a state; even the Americans used to credit Saddam in the 70s for forging Iraqi statehood if nothing else. It did promote a modicum of stability in the area at that time(no I am not a Hussein supporter, just stating the facts). The Turks may also not be happy with an independent Kurdish state on their border as it may incite local Kurds to agitate for a greater Kurdistan, and it may not work out well for minorities (eg Assyrians). In fact, last year slightly more radical suggestions were made – including intergrating Sunnis and Palestinians into a larger Jordanian state.

Plus David is right. A Kurdish state would get most of the oil fields I think, but would nevertheless need access to Um Qasr or Turkey for exports. Other states would need sources of revenue too. Add to that access to other resources, not least of which is water. The sorts of problems we don’t face because we don’t share our land borders with anyone. It’s OK to say, yes I want to stick with my tribe, but the question will them be: how shall we then live?
Even some of the smaller Russian states agitating for independence are in more recent times, recognising the value of being hooked into the larger Russian economy (yes even some of the Chechnyans).

I know that a federation of states was the favoured option by the Coalition when we went into this war so I also don’t know that they would necessarily support anything but without a lot of persuasion.

Just some quick and garbled thoughts.

There’s no harm in hoping that common sense could prevail. Who the hell is the enemy once we’ve gone, and why the hell should we care anyway, considering the blood bath we’ve already caused? We only have a ‘vested’ interest in Iraq because of its resource in oil. And I said nothing about ‘democracy’, which I understand few, if any Iraqis, actually desire.

Take a step back, EP, before you go off the rails completely.

It seems to me that you are refining far too much on the original article.

Sure, the kidnap/beheadings are distressing, and devastating for the families involved – but they don’t affect the balance of forces. So what if the DVD’s sell in the thousands? If even 1% of Iraqis enjoy that sort of thing, you are looking at a quarter of a million people. This is no indication that there is a broad swell of popular opinion against the invasion.

The car bombings and attack on civilians are worse, of course, but all they really signify is that the occupation and Iraqi forces are not yet able to protect the population. Given time, that can be corrected. These things can be fought and beaten, and it wll be far better for all if it CAN be beaten.

How can the “resistance” – actually terrorist – forces win? Simply by convincing well-meaning but gullible chaps like you at home to go away. They do this by holding their own population, and any foreigners they can get their hands on, to ransom. Otherwise they have no chance.

Your ruminations of what a “successful” exit strategy might be are, I am afraid, part of the problem. You have completely lost sight of who we are fighting here and what their actual goals are. I mean, if terror tactics work on the US, they would work on any government left behind. So a retreat would not save the population anyway.

What would happen is that you would end up with two of three states run by islamist terrorists – think Afghanistan with oil, and emboldened with a far bigger victory than 9/11. And they will likely have nukes in the not to distant future.

It’s pretty clear that a high proportion of the bombings (though mostly not suicide ones) and military-style attacks in the Sunni regions are being perpetrated by elements of the former Republican Guard and other Baathist remnants, who melted into the general population as part of a deliberate guerilla war strategy no doubt orchestrated in advance by Saddam. Once power is overtly handed over to them again over their own homeland region, those attacks will stop, and their previous record from Saddam’s day clearly shows they’re more than capable of dealing with civil order issues. They would dispatch the Al Qaeda lunatics effectively and quickly, I think.

As for the Kurdish region, my proposal doesn’t involve US withdrawal from there at all; in fact US forces would probably be increased to provide a sufficient level of assurance against external attack and internal security.

The southern half of Iraq under Shiite control is more of a worry. They would certainly be able to exclude the Sunnis, but would they be able to establish effective control and defeat the Al Qaeda/Islamist lunatics? I’m not sure, but I reckon there’s a far better chance than now, where mostly only powerless former emigres are co-operating actively with the US/UK occupation forces, while most credible mainstream Shiites pursue a Sistani-led passive non-cooperation strategy and a significant minority follow Moqtada Al Sadr into open revolt. Once the Shiites were fully responsible for their own region without a (destabilising) US/UK presence, the situation would at least be much clearer, and mainstream Shiites would know that it was THEIR responsibility to secure and maintain law and order in their own country. Whether they’ll be able to do so successfully, given that they lack the governance experience of the Baathist Sunnis, is less certain. But I reckon there’s a much better chance of it than while the place is being “run” by a US occupation force and a handful of emigre Iraqis that everyone else barely tolerates at best.

Finally, note that I’m not suggesting that US/UK forces pull out at once from either the Sunni or Shiite regions. I’m suggesting that it would take place over 12 months or so, so that secure, sensible borders could be established and people assisted to relocate where necessary. And I’m also suggesting that a very substantial US military force remain in the Kurdish region more or less indefinitely, along with major air force elements to deter armed large-scale attacks across the border by Sunnis on Shiites or vice versa. What I’m suggesting is anything but a craven “cut and run” strategy.

David/Saint

I think the objections of David and Saint have more substance. I’m not completely sure how easy it would be to draw viable borders so that all 3 new states had control of adequate water and oil resources and reliable ways of shipping the oil out. As far as I can see from this map, access to water shouldn’t be a problem in any of the 3 regions. And both the Shiites and Kurds would clearly have control of enough oil, and the Shiites would have port access as well at Um Qasr (the only sea access in the entire nation). But the Sunnis possibly wouldn’t have control of major oil fields depending on where the border is established (which means they’d forever be spoiling to invade to north or south to try to grab them), and the Kurds would be reliant on shipping oil out via adjoining countries Iran, Syria and Turkey (or the new Sunni and Shiite states to their south). You wouldn’t count on any of them to co-operate with the Kurds.

However, it might be possible to resolve Sunni State control of oil resources by drawing the Sunni/Kurd border just north of Kirkuk, which would give the Sunnis control of a reasonable proportion of the northern oilfields and lots of refineries, according to this map. That would, however, almost certainly mean the relocation northwards of lots of Kurds, because Kirkuk has a very large Kurdish population. The Sunnis shouldn’t have too much difficulty shipping oil out via adjoining countries, and they might even eventually be able to do a deal with the Shiite south to ship it out via Um Qasr using existing north-south pipelines.

Thus, it seems the only major and not obviously soluble aspect of David/Saint’s objection is how the Kurds could reliably ship their oil out of their country and sell it. However, with ongoing US military and aid backing, that shouldn’t be terminal either. The more I think about it, the more I reckon this COULD be a workable solution.

My thoughts on the matter are as they were back then. There is no-way to impose a division on these people that they don’t want.

The tribal politics and culture of the region are incompatible with our view of how things should be run. Paul McGeogh’s Quarterly Essay Mission Impossible makes this quite clear.

The only solution I feel, is to back off, let the civil war begin with all its bloody consequences, and then make a deal with, or crush, the eventual winner.

JQ’s idea was a two state solution not three, and back in April he was assuming that it would still be feasible to hold general elections. It’s now clear that that won’t be possible in any menaingful sense. Whether a three state solution could be engineered in the absence of elections is dubious, I admit. But since the alternative is, as you admit, to simply withdraw and accept the inevitability of a bloody civil war, there’s nothing much to lose and everything to gain in giving my idea a go.

having penetrated without consent, what difference if you withdraw or keep screwing?? either way the damage has been done

I thought this was an idea worth considering for the Coalition… engage in ‘face-saving’ operations… “To Win the Peace, We Must ‘Lose’ the War – Find a Credible Iraqi Leader, and Hand Him Victory”

but I guess that’d be impossible for a leader in a democracy who’d want to keep his or her Whitehouse suite

couple of other thoughts marked up here