George Will wants to split Iraq like Yugoslavia. (on This Week)

He says that they are not a nation. There are too many groups.

wonder who told him this was wise... rummy? perle? wolfowitz of arabia?

peace

...that observation IMO is likely correct.

It is Baghdad, the central area, that is the most difficult to get control of, and USA would prefer to control the Kurdish area to the north. They are most friendly to us and they have a lot, beaucoup, oil...

Wait, I thought that most of the oil was in the southern part of the country? Which is it... North or South?

contrary to what most people believe...

but in the middle is the water.

Giving control of the water to the Sunnis may not be a good idea. All the oil in the world won't do you any good, if someone cuts off your access to water.

Although they probably don't give a rat's ass about Turkey anyway.

Shiastan, Sunnistan and Kurdistan looks good on paper, but the Turks are violently against giving Kurds any more autonomy than they already have.

Turkish Kurds have the pipelines and oil access that's bringing serious bucks in, and they already have enough problems dealing with the separatist movement.

There's also the question of Iran annexing southern Iraq's Shiites. Much talk of that in Teheran, and the only question they ask is whether they want to do it the hard way or the easy way. In the grand sceme of things, a larger Iran probably isn't all that bad, but it would scare the piss out of a lot of people.

It is just another scheme to seize their resources. It's plan B. It has a host of problems associated with it. Trying to digest the country a few pieces a time superficially seems to make sense but it will increase the hostility toward us regionally and internationally.

George Will is wrong as usual. There is no way to "fix" what we have done to Iraq except to get out.

Splitting Iraq up into three countries seems to make perfect sense to me, on many levels. Unless we're going to install (or be ourselves) another tyrannical dictator who assasinates anyone who disagrees, we have no reason to keep Iraq together in its current state. Maybe this would even be a way to undo the mistake of the British so long ago.

Or perhaps he's serving as the balloon floater for what the string-pullers will unveil.

But the historical junk has been out there----that the Brits simply drew a line around the oil without regard to the separate cultures and regions. But there are Kurdish areas in Turkey that might want to join "Kurdistan" and would Iran want to annex the Shi'ite area?

But Shrub and Pickles have been guests at George "Debate Tapes" WILL's house for dinner, meaning, well you know.

For the kiddies out there, WILL as a RAYGUN operative got into his possession Jimmy CARTER's prep-material for upcoming debates. Unlike President GORE's staff, who blew the whistle when Shrub's was mailed to them, WILL opened up the stuff and LOOKED. Yaas, WILL the purported model of rectitude and baseball. Oh, well, the 1919 Black Sox...

the arrogance of these people is even now still astounding.

if splitting countries is their cup'o'tea now, maybe the western states of the "US" should be split off.. or is it just ok to talk like that about foreign lands being raped and robbed?

If anything wouldnt this bring more wars? I can imagine the different groups arent eactly fond of eachother

and have their own turf without being hassled with policies from outside their turf?

It would just result in ethnic violence and dislocation of the ones who suddenly found themselves on the wrong side of the fence.

Yep, the Neo-Cons are imperialists, but the original (if a time is picked willy nilly) wrong was done post WW I for the "right" reasons of WILSONian idealism, divvying up maps. The other side of the Neo-Con eternal-war thing is the supposedly "idealistic" cover story, offering "noble" cover stories for the roguery, like offering (imposing) "democracy" and self-determination.

As for the arrogant violations of sovereignty that a poster above referred to, yep, but this attitude towards the sovereignty of others has been a permanent feature of U.S. policy, depending on how powerful-------or, really, how NOT powerful----the victim state is. Mexico has been kvetching about its sovereignty vis a vis the U.S. on different issues forever.

I absolutely DETEST agreeing with "Debate-tapes" WILL about anything, and submit that this 3-regions idea was around long before "Debate-Tapes" joined in, so I'm not admitting to agreeing with HIM. At this late date of all the damage done, the illegal rogue war, not to mention the ancient wrongs, it just sounds reasonable and respectful now.

People who contend it isn't one country are deluding themselves. Experts can debate on this issue for hours, but Will the neophyte colonialist already knows the answer.

that the right severely ridiculed those who said the same thing before the war. Exactly what those who opposed the war predicted has come to be.

What the hell is wrong with the media? These aren’t new ideas.

So this would solve nothing. The real aim of this idea seems to be an excuse to able to blame the violence on ethnic tensions, and then to justify abandoning and pulling our troops out of the violent areas where there is no oil (read: Baghdad).

This certainly would be convenient. Divorce the political and cultural center of the region from its resources. That sounds fair if you are a plundering conqueror. It won't stop the violence.

In fact, violence in the south has been increasing and will continue to increase with the occupations ineptitude. Shiites will unite the country again, if the Sunnis can't. Arabs are not going to let Bhagdad be isolated and truncated from the rest of the state regardless of their religious orientation. The assumption that they will disregards hundreds of years of Arab history.

The Turks won't stand for an independent Kurdish state.

PNAC won't stand for an independent Shiite state.

Apparently, Bush won't stand for an independent Iraqi state at all.

...if the "oil rich" part could be the 51st state.

Hahahaha. Good one. Welcome aboard.