Partioning Iraq

When the USA-led military coalition invaded Iraq I was living in London, United Kingdom so one of my immediate thoughts was of the British Empire. Why? Because modern day Iraq was simply carved out of the former British Empire placing at least three different ethnic/community groups - Kurds, Sunni, and Shia - together via Iraq. While I was not a supporter of the Iraq invasion because I thought we should consolidate/ensure the victory in Afghanistan before taking on other "projects" if at all. But once the Iraq invasion happened my first thought was -- there can't be any reason to hold Iraq together as one nation other than it makes it easier to negotiate master contracts for oil exploration but perhaps there were other reasons.

Two other reasons come to mind -

1.) Fear of an autonomous Shia region/nation joining to form a "Greater Iran" , and
2.) Fear of upsetting the USA's ally (although they did not allow the USA invasion force to use their air space so not really much of an ally) , Turkey, since they fear an autonomous Kurdistan that would then lay claim to land in Turkey given its Kurdish population.

This week the news media is reporting that Turkey may launch a military offensive into Iraq against the Kurds which they view to be a terrorist organization. For more information on Kurdistan please visit -- http://www.theotheriraq.com/index.html While the USA would risk upsetting Turkey I see ZERO reason to lose more American military lives simply to keep Iraq in one piece.

Now in the 1980's we had the slogan "Peace Through Strength" but perhaps today's slogan should be "Peace Through Sovereignty/Autonomy" (a bit wordy but you get the idea) for regions like Kurdistan, the Basque region in Spain, and even Scotland which is increasingly interested in leaving the United Kingdom based on recent parliamentary election results. My regular readers know that I am NO fan of the United Nations but this is one idea that the UN should support since it will increase their membership numbers while also increasing the chances we will see less warfare/terrorism in the future (yes I know the Scots are not sending suicide bombers to London!!).

Bring on the Kurdish embassies!!

Todd