Segregation For Iraq: Some Bad Ideas Never Die

 

shutterstock_195311009A disturbing number of people have been praising Vice President Joe Biden’s plan to partition Iraq. In its original form, The Biden Plan was to have a greater degree of federalization of Iraqi governmental power with the 19 governorates being split into four regions (Sunni Arab, Shia Arab, Kurdish, and Baghdad), protected by a UN resolution, with four goals: 1) to change the federal structure of Iraq by creating a level of regional government between the governorates and the federal government; 2) to allocate oil revenues; 3) to protect women’s rights; and 4) to allow the US to withdraw militarily by 2008. A few months later, Biden updated his plan to lose Baghdad as a separate region, to drop women’s rights, and to include a new jobs program to be paid for by the Gulf States that would protect minority rights (how we’d make the Saudis go along with that last demand was never clear). He modeled both plans on the segregationist Dayton Accords in Bosnia.

Despite Biden’s plan not being implemented, two of these goals have happened anyway: the oil revenues have achieved ever greater degrees of formalized allocation, and women’s rights have been supported. On the other hand, the Surge happened and the Iraqis didn’t want regional level governments. The governorates (essentially, provinces) were given the ability by federal law to federalize into regions, combining such that the Sunni majority governorates could establish a regional government with greater powers, the Shia could do likewise, etc. Regardless, Arab Iraqis chose not to take that opportunity; indeed, at no point did even two governorates attempt to unify. The Kurds took the increased powers allocated to any such region that existed and added them to their already considerable number of autonomous powers, but there was no other regional identity that was able to coalesce into regional government.

The international consequences of implementing the Biden Plan — had the US withdrawn militarily by 2008 without a Surge — seem quite apparent. As for a UN convention to get everyone to agree not to invade Iraq, while it might sound as if that would have been really helpful, ISIS would not have been a signatory to the agreement.

In short, other than cancelling the Surge, Biden didn’t propose anything important, useful, or particularly harmful. His idea was dumb, but compared to other plans to recreate Vietnam, his differed only in adding a few tens of millions in pointless spending. Most people in the West, however, think the Biden Plan was a plan to split Iraq into three countries.

There are six key reasons that The Biden Plan that people think existed was confused and remains toxic. The first through fifth apply to the Biden Plan as Biden described it, too.

First, Iraq is pretty integrated. A fair number of maps purport to show increasing ethnic purity in Baghdad over time (wiki has some), but those maps either exaggerate differences (in this one the areas “in transition” in 2009 mostly failed to transition as violence dropped off) or claim entirely false differences; the “mostly [eg] Shia” maps are fair enough, but there are maps claiming ethnically exclusive areas that were not ethnically exclusive, as I used to discuss with the allegedly non-existent minorities from those areas. Even looking at those, you can see that Baghdad couldn’t be neatly parceled out. Because the US used a lot of these maps, you can’t read an account of life, or the fighting in Baghdad, without regular notes that “Person X was living in neighborhood Y despite being of the ‘wrong’ demographic.” In particular, many of the best-paid Kurds live outside the Kurdish regions, particularly in Baghdad. Partition would ensure that ⅓ – ¼ of Kurds would become foreigners in their own country (if, indeed, they were even able to stay).

Secondly, ethnic segregation is far more easily said than done. As Partition in North West India showed, creating an ethnic homeland for a currently integrated population is not always comfortable and does not always result in more moderate, balanced, government. The North of Iraq was generally more peaceful than the rest of the country, with a chief cause of tension being the possibility that something Bidenish would happen, meaning that it was very important indeed to have the right ethnic groups dominating the key border areas. Ethnically segregated groups often maintain hostility over time. One of the worst points of the ISIS invasion was during the early stages, when the Peshmerga thought they could remain neutral and let ISIS take Arab portions of Iraq; the bitterest anti-Kurd sentiment seen in a long time swept the rest of the country. Thankfully, ISIS then invaded the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the Peshmerga joined the fight alongside the Iraqi Security Forces, and relative ethnic harmony was restored. If there was an Iraqi Sunnistan, ISIS would have taken that, taken a good chunk more of the KRG, and be sitting relatively comfortably right now. People rag on the Iraqi Security Forces a lot because they suffered a major defeat in June last year, but they’re the best the region has.

Thirdly, offering hope to those who wanted to turn their chunk of Iraq into a despotic state isn’t likely to discourage them. Al Qaeda fought hard to make Anbar (in particular) ungovernable, and some Sunnis worked with them toward that goal. Sadr and his pals did the same with parts of their home turf, and some Iranian groups worked along similar lines. In each case — and, ultimately, decisively with Anbar — the impossibility of taking over the government of all Iraq was a key reason for abandoning the struggle. The same would not have been true of the smaller countries Biden proposed; Iraqi Sunnistan would have been much more easily attainable for the various insurgents who desired it, and would have been seen to be so. Sadr’s boys would have a much better chance of taking over the government of South Iraq, possibly in alliance with Iranians. Diyala, Baghdad, and other areas of disputed claim would have had much more motivation for ethnic cleansing. Most people don’t fight or support a fight if they don’t think there’s a chance they’ll win.

Fourthly, one of the major narratives in the Arab world when the war began was that America wanted to destroy the powerful Saddamite Iraq and leave divided, weak, nations behind. Since Biden’s plan was to bug-out at the precise time that all heck broke loose, we’d have been doing our utmost to demonstrate to the region that their worst fears about American moral bankruptcy and hostility to Arabs were true. We fought hard, and successfully, to persuade the Arab world that AQ is terrible. Essentially everyone but the Palestinians went from being majority AQ supporting to strong majority opposing. This would have undone that.

Fifthly, Iraq is a big government and fairly highly centralized economy, and society has grown up around it. The Kurds don’t want to be out of that because they get a much more generous settlement from the oil than they would get if they were independent; indeed, the chief reason businesses invest and base themselves in the KRG is as a base from which to do business within the rest of Iraq. The nationwide companies are multi-ethnic and multi-confessional and forcing them to redraw business plans and reorganize their human resources to match the new segregation would have been a nightmare. Certainly it seems unlikely that any of the organizations I worked with could lose their minority employees and recover within the foreseeable future. Saddam’s devastation of the education system meant that the qualified people were all either old, young, or ex-pats, and so there were many people who had learned on the job as cohorts and would struggle to work without their friends (as you can imagine, there are other problems with this).

Sixthly, Iraqis of all ethnicities and faiths predictably, vociferously, and passionately rejected — and continue to reject — The Biden Plan. Iraqi ex-pats often supported independence from each other, particularly ex-pat Kurds, leading to a widespread perception that The Biden Plan had support. You saw the same thing with the Scottish independence vote: Scottish Americans and Scottish Canadians overwhelmingly supported independence while Scottish Scots voted it down. The same was true for Quebecois, and for many other independence referenda. In Iraq, though, the two Kurdish political parties (well, three now, but two then) both agreed with all the major Sunni parties and the major Shia Parties that this was a terrible idea. Indeed, Kurds quite like the central government; a Kurd is President of Iraq, and the latest Gallup poll (a few months old) has the KRG giving Prime Minister Abadi a 53% approval rating, the lowest he gets from anyone in Iraq (72% of Sunni areas, the rest ranging from there to 78%), but still pretty good by world leader standards. For a variety of reasons, they have strong incentives to remain part of Iraq. They grumble, but they’ve never seriously moved towards independence, a move that they could easily have taken at any stage of the occupation, or since. If they declared independence tomorrow, it’s not like the US would let Baghdad do anything about it. For comparison, to see how sensible Biden’s Dayton Accords model was, contemplate Radovan Karadžić’s likely approval rating amongst Bosniaks.

I focus on the Kurds in the above list, but all of those six point apply even more strongly to the Sunni areas. For the Shia, the financial arguments go the other way, but they’re pretty seriously patriotic. Again, no major Shia politician calls for the breakup. Before the Iraq-Iran war, plenty of wise old men claimed that the Shia Iraqis wouldn’t fight for Sunni Saddam against Shia Iranians, fresh from their revolution. Those pundits were really, seriously, wrong. The one truly problematic domestic demographic for Saddam were the Kurds, who were Sunni. Iraq has been the hub of a multi-ethnic empire since literally before the beginning of history. They feel keenly that they are a great people, although 2008-2014 were basically the only good years they’ve had since 1979, and the constant catastrophe has worn on them.

The Biden plan would have encouraged bloodshed, collapsed the economy, and created at least two failed states that would have become key security threats to the US. It would have confirmed the anti-American sentiments of anyone in the region who even dreamed of having them before. It would have broken the hearts of the patriotic Iraqis who soldiered through decades of trauma only to see the country they defended from Iranian invasion, American bombing after Kuwait, civil war, another invasion, Al Qaeda attacks, and more eventually broken up and left in pieces. On every level — economic, military, political, and moral — it was one of the worst ideas to come out of Congress in modern times.

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  1. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Even if Baghdad stays segregated for some time – and going by evidence from Beirut and (less spectacularly) Mumbai segregation caused by communal carnage lasts a long time after that carnage comes under control – what will keep it together is what will keep Iraq together (I hope, because segregating what is heterogenous is an awful thing) – business.

    • #1
  2. user_533354 Member
    user_533354
    @melissaosullivan

    Great and informative article!

    • #2
  3. Carey J. Inactive
    Carey J.
    @CareyJ

    And sometimes giving bigoted [expletive] a place where they can go off by themselves to live out their bigotry in peace isn’t a bad idea. And in the worst-case scenario, where they still won’t let their neighbors alone, at least they’re all in one big group where you can bomb them back to the stone age with fewer innocents being harmed.

    Biden is generally too stupid to tie his own shoes, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

    • #3
  4. user_5186 Inactive
    user_5186
    @LarryKoler

    James, this is an excellent piece. Thanks for the history lesson.

    You mentioned India’s partition and that was determined somewhat by referenda and I am convinced that it was a mistake to do it and it was a huge mistake to do it in the way it was carried out: surprise, you are in Pakistan this morning and oops, are you Hindu?

    And it is very interesting how things turned out in Quebec and Scotland, wasn’t it? After all the pomposity the people who would actually bear the brunt of stupid ideas decided: well, not today, not me, no thanks.

    I remember Christopher Hitchens insisting that Iraqis did have a long history of tolerance, inter-marriage and cohesiveness across most of the country and that the Shiites among them were Arabs not Persians and that made a huge difference.

    Saddam was a Stalinist and it’s not surprising that he screwed things up so badly.

    Finally, I’ll point to a thing that has bothered me for decades: Carter’s undermining of Somosa and the Shah of Iran. He really thought that, in those respective countries, things couldn’t get worse. This reflects really bad statesmanship. But, it was what the international left thought and wanted and so Carter decided to “fundamentally transform” them.

    This should be up on the main feed.

    • #4
  5. Byron Horatio Inactive
    Byron Horatio
    @ByronHoratio

    Whatever the economic benefits, the current arrangement still seems a loser for the Kurds. Namely, the fact that all weapons are funneled through Baghdad before going to the KRG. Considering the Peshmerga has proven the most effective ground force against ISIS, it’s perplexing that they are not armed directly by the U.S. I know a few current soldiers in the Peshmerga who have had to buy all their own weapons and gear due to a lack of small arms and ammunition.

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  6. user_5186 Inactive
    user_5186
    @LarryKoler

    Byron Horatio:Whatever the economic benefits, the current arrangement still seems a loser for the Kurds.Namely, the fact that all weapons are funneled through Baghdad before going to the KRG.Considering the Peshmerga has proven the most effective ground force against ISIS, it’s perplexing that they are not armed directly by the U.S.I know a few current soldiers in the Peshmerga who have had to buy all their own weapons and gear due to a lack of small arms and ammunition.

    I understand that this is done to mollify the Turks.

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  7. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Byron Horatio:Considering the Peshmerga has proven the most effective ground force against ISIS, it’s perplexing that they are not armed directly by the U.S.

    I don’t think that this is nearly as true as has been portrayed. The Peshmerga were initially uninterested in ISIS. When ISIS attacked them, they had more warning than the ISF, and they still collapsed.

    After that, the Peshmerga famously retook the Mosul dam. Less widely reported was the fact that they retook it with the help of the ISF. Since then, the ISF has retaken more ground than the Peshmerga has.

    As I understand it, the central Peshmerga organization has mostly fallen by the wayside, with most operations being conducted by one or other of the two party militias, with bitter infighting over who was to blame for their dramatic losses.

    It’s that structure, with the US being more willing to give to the Peshmerga industry, but the Kurds wanting to arm either the KDP or the PUK Peshmergas, that had the biggest impact on direct support.

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  8. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Byron Horatio:Whatever the economic benefits, the current arrangement still seems a loser for the Kurds.

    Even if the lack of Peshmerga effectiveness was because of the union, ISIS hasn’t been making many advances into the KRG since their initial victories, and doesn’t seem particularly focused on it. They initially picked a fight with the KRG because they were overconfident, and they’ve been taken down a peg or two since then, so most of their efforts are in Baghdad, Anbar, and Salahaddin.

    The reason that the Peshmerga collapsed is that they’d become a checkpoint army and hadn’t had to fight all that much during the recent conflict; AQ weren’t too interested in them and they thought that they could maintain peace with ISIS. The Peshmerga was very effective in the 1980s and 1990s, but a couple of decades of resting on one’s laurels can really impact an irregular force. This meant that exchanging economic, political, and cultural power for military weakness was a pretty good exchange.

    ISIS turned out to be way more aggressive than expected, but if they’re now being pushed back and will no longer represent a threat, the KRG is back to properly valuing education, prosperity, and other similar things more than it values military power.

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  9. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Carey J.:And sometimes giving bigoted [expletive] a place where they can go off by themselves to live out their bigotry in peace isn’t a bad idea. And in the worst-case scenario, where they still won’t let their neighbors alone, at least they’re all in one big group where you can bomb them back to the stone age with fewer innocents being harmed.

    Biden is generally too stupid to tie his own shoes, but even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

    If there were a suggestion that a jerk enclave be created where bigots could voluntarily go and live, then I’d see this argument. That’s not how partition works, though. Instead, most of the bigots get to keep on doing what they’re doing, but they’re empowered to kill a lot more non-bigots.

    When property ownership and wealth becomes more a matter of military power, the non-bigots are marginalized and the future becomes worse for everyone.

    If you’re saying that we should just have left Iraq and done without the Surge, then I disagree with you but I can see your point. The difference with the Biden Plan and those who simply wanted to flee, though, was that Biden would have increased the suffering, increased the financial loss, and increased US commitment to Iraq as compared to straightforward Harry Reid plan surrender.

    Argue for isolationism all you want, but Biden wanted us to be isolationist with the exception of forcing others to enact terrible policies.

    • #9
  10. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Zafar:Even if Baghdad stays segregated for some time – and going by evidence from Beirut and (less spectacularly) Mumbai segregation caused by communal carnage lasts a long time after that carnage comes under control – what will keep it together is what will keep Iraq together (I hope, because segregating what is heterogenous is an awful thing) – business.

    Exactly. If you work together, take the same public transport, and go to the same cinemas, vote for the same political blocks, and you have some integrated residential neighborhoods, you maintain a lot of unity. One of the big favors that ISIS has been offering is that they’re reminding Iraq of how much they appreciate their minorities, which also helps; multilateral tolerance and integration is easier than bilateral.

    By the way, in looking stuff up for this, I was reminded of this article. The whole thing is a bottomless pit of dumb, but I was particularly amazed by map 2, and thought that you might enjoy chuckling over it. Since I think you sometimes read Vox, I thought it would be helpful to remind you that when you do, you’re reading people who are significantly less knowledgeable about this stuff than you are. Better than reading Vox for knowledge, you should get drunk and record yourself pondering issues, then play it back when you’re sober.

    • #10
  11. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Larry Koler:James, this is an excellent piece. Thanks for the history lesson.

    You mentioned India’s partition and that was determined somewhat by referenda and I am convinced that it was a mistake to do it and it was a huge mistake to do it in the way it was carried out: surprise, you are in Pakistan this morning and oops, are you Hindu?

    To be fair to those who organized partition, I don’t think that it’s possible to take integrated communities and separate them without a lot of awfulness. I mean, obviously it could have been done with a lot less bloodshed, and should have been undertaken with more resources and less political correctness, but the Wilsonian idea of self rule cannot be made to be pleasant.

    And it is very interesting how things turned out in Quebec and Scotland, wasn’t it? After all the pomposity the people who would actually bear the brunt of stupid ideas decided: well, not today, not me, no thanks.

    I remember Christopher Hitchens insisting that Iraqis did have a long history of tolerance, inter-marriage and cohesiveness across most of the country and that the Shiites among them were Arabs not Persians and that made a huge difference.

    Well, I mean, sure, but there are Persians there as well as Arabs. If you’re ever in Iraq, try to make sure it’s the Persians who cook for you, at least if you share my views on the right levels of oil.

    Saddam was a Stalinist and it’s not surprising that he screwed things up so badly.

    He came close to doing incredibly well. If things had gone slightly differently for Bush, Bush might have been forced to back down. By now, Saddam would have left Tel Aviv a smoking crater and Saladin would be described in Arab history books as the regions greatest leader between the Prophet and Saddam. He did well by high stakes gambles, though, and he was never able to tell when he bit off more than he could chew. Even if he’d retreated the day before Desert Storm, he’d have survived with a much wealthier and more successful Iraq. Likewise, if he’d taken 43’s invasion seriously enough, he could have made a last minute deal that protected a lot more of what he found valuable. I think that Stalin would have done better on both occasions, although Stalin might not have lasted that long; Stalin did much less than Saddam to hobble his country to prevent opposition, so, for instance, the Soviets had phones and such.

    Finally, I’ll point to a thing that has bothered me for decades: Carter’s undermining of Somosa and the Shah of Iran. He really thought that, in those respective countries, things couldn’t get worse. This reflects really bad statesmanship. But, it was what the international left thought and wanted and so Carter decided to “fundamentally transform” them.

    As Zafar can attest, you and I are on the same page here.

    This should be up on the main feed.

    I’ve agreed with a lot that you’ve written, but your praise is probably the most insightful stuff. ;-)

    Seriously, we’re having a big celebration of history, theology, and such at the Kansas City Meetup. I have to believe that you’re in the 1% when it comes to seeing the value in celebrating the 8th centennial of the Magna Carta, the bicentennial of Waterloo, and a bunch of the other anniversaries that fall then. What are the odds that you’ll be able to make it out so we can discuss this stuff in person?

    • #11
  12. Byron Horatio Inactive
    Byron Horatio
    @ByronHoratio

    James, what is your appraisal of the Kurdish YPG/YPJ militias, communists though they be and related to the PKK? It was startling to see them evict ISIS from Kobane, which seemed a lost cause in the fall.

    I know their hardline leftism was a turnoff to a number of foreign volunteers, who left them for the Peshmerga or other militias in Iraq.

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  13. user_5186 Inactive
    user_5186
    @LarryKoler

    James Of England:

    Seriously, we’re having a big celebration of history, theology, and such at the Kansas City Meetup. I have to believe that you’re in the 1% when it comes to seeing the value in celebrating the 8th centennial of the Magna Carta, the bicentennial of Waterloo, and a bunch of the other anniversaries that fall then. What are the odds that you’ll be able to make it out so we can discuss this stuff in person?

    I would truly love to make it but I have 2 giganto family reunions (my family’s 5-year reunion in eastern Oregon and my wife’s family’s mondo reunion near Kingston, Ontario) this summer and a long conference around June 25th.

    Next time you are out west let me know in time and I will travel to where you are. Seattle’s nice, you know.

    • #13
  14. user_5186 Inactive
    user_5186
    @LarryKoler

    Also, you didn’t comment on my “mollify the Turks” point. Isn’t this part of why the Kurds are treated a little standoffishly with regard to weapons? Turkey is still an important ally and even Obama doesn’t want to make them harder to get along with.

    • #14
  15. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    James Of England:

    By the way, in looking stuff up for this, I was reminded of this article. The whole thing is a bottomless pit of dumb, but I was particularly amazed by map 2, and thought that you might enjoy chuckling over it…

    Well that’s certainly going to be a surprise to them in Lahore….

    • #15
  16. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Larry Koler:Also, you didn’t comment on my “mollify the Turks” point. Isn’t this part of why the Kurds are treated a little standoffishly with regard to weapons? Turkey is still an important ally and even Obama doesn’t want to make them harder to get along with.

    I suspect (James will correct me) that this is something of an excuse. Of course the US wants to keep Turkey on side, but directly shipping arms to one of three Kurdish forces is also a bit fraught – to whom? in what ratio? can you explain why or why not without offending people you need to keep happy? what if a bunch of them turn out to be corrupt?  Better let the Govt of Iraq take the heat on all this while the US blames Turkey and smiles sympathetically.

    • #16
  17. user_5186 Inactive
    user_5186
    @LarryKoler

    Zafar:

    Larry Koler:Also, you didn’t comment on my “mollify the Turks” point. Isn’t this part of why the Kurds are treated a little standoffishly with regard to weapons? Turkey is still an important ally and even Obama doesn’t want to make them harder to get along with.

    I suspect (James will correct me) that this is something of an excuse. Of course the US wants to keep Turkey on side, but directly shipping arms to one of three Kurdish forces is also a bit fraught – to whom? in what ratio? can you explain why or why not without offending people you need to keep happy? what if a bunch of them turn out to be corrupt? Better let the Govt of Iraq take the heat on all this while the US blames Turkey and smiles sympathetically.

    Yes, I should have been clearer — the Kurdish separtists in Turkey are a real problem for the Turks and are viewed as a threat. The Turks will fight for every scrap of real estate and simply will not cede any of it to a gestating Kurdistan.

    • #17
  18. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Zafar:

    Larry Koler:Also, you didn’t comment on my “mollify the Turks” point. Isn’t this part of why the Kurds are treated a little standoffishly with regard to weapons? Turkey is still an important ally and even Obama doesn’t want to make them harder to get along with.

    I suspect (James will correct me) that this is something of an excuse. Of course the US wants to keep Turkey on side, but directly shipping arms to one of three Kurdish forces is also a bit fraught – to whom? in what ratio? can you explain why or why not without offending people you need to keep happy? what if a bunch of them turn out to be corrupt? Better let the Govt of Iraq take the heat on all this while the US blames Turkey and smiles sympathetically.

    Right. When you get political parties directly involved in the fighting, there’s something a little unseemly about skipping the government and specifically supporting the factions. Worse, it’s not like the factions are equally threatened; the vast bulk of the Kurdish offensives have been around Mosul.

    Turkey’s involvement in the ISIS fight has problematic from our perspective, but I have quite a lot of sympathy for them. For a long time, they said that they wouldn’t help unless the US committed to taking on Assad. ISIS are terrible, with very media friendly atrocities, but Assad’s still killed more people and would, in many ways, be a less appealing neighbor than ISIS. Obama’s failure to commit to supporting peaceful democracy in Syria, even in vague terms, was one of the key problems facing military efforts in Iraq and Syria for 2014.

    So, yes, Turkish influence was probably a part of it, but the preference for supplying arms through regular, audited, channels was probably more important. Zafar is very kind to suggest that the concern is “What if” there turned out to be corruption in the process, but going through regular channels helps cut that down a little.

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  19. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Zafar:

    James Of England:

    By the way, in looking stuff up for this, I was reminded of this article. The whole thing is a bottomless pit of dumb, but I was particularly amazed by map 2, and thought that you might enjoy chuckling over it…

    Well that’s certainly going to be a surprise to them in Lahore….

    The residents of Lahore should get together with the Kuwaitis, Sunni Lebanese, and Qataris to organize pilgrimages together. I think the fact checking must have extended to “Which ones are the Iranians? Shia, right? OK, it’s good.”

    • #19
  20. user_352043 Coolidge
    user_352043
    @AmySchley

    After watching the best argument for small government conservative politics (aka Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister), anytime the subject of partition comes up, I’m reminded of this exchange from “A Victory for Democracy“:

    Sir Richard: We should have partitioned the island, like we did in India and Cyprus and Palestine.

    Sir Humphrey: and Ireland?

    Sir Richard: Yes, that was our invariable practice with the colonies. It always worked.

    Sir Humphrey: But didn’t partition always lead to civil war? – As in India, Cyprus, Palestine and Ireland. –

    Sir Richard: Yes, but it kept them busy. Instead of fighting other people, they fought each other.

    Sir Humphrey: Yes, rather good.

    Sir Richard: Saved us needing to have a policy about them.

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  21. user_352043 Coolidge
    user_352043
    @AmySchley

    Zafar:Even if Baghdad stays segregated for some time – and going by evidence from Beirut and (less spectacularly) Mumbai segregation caused by communal carnage lasts a long time after that carnage comes under control – what will keep it together is what will keep Iraq together (I hope, because segregating what is heterogenous is an awful thing) – business.

    Not familiar with the Mumbai segregation; can you explain further?

    • #21
  22. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Amy Schley:After watching the best argument for small government conservative politics (aka Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister), anytime the subject of partition comes up, I’m reminded of this exchange from “A Victory for Democracy“:

    Sir Richard: We should have partitioned the island, like we did in India and Cyprus and Palestine.

    Sir Humphrey: and Ireland?……

    Sir Richard: Yes, but it kept them busy. Instead of fighting other people, they fought each other…..

    I think it helps a little to appreciate the full irony to remember that this aired during a mainland bombing campaign by the IRA.

    • #22
  23. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Amy Schley:

    Zafar:Even if Baghdad stays segregated for some time – and going by evidence from Beirut and (less spectacularly) Mumbai segregation caused by communal carnage lasts a long time after that carnage comes under control – what will keep it together is what will keep Iraq together (I hope, because segregating what is heterogenous is an awful thing) – business.

    Not familiar with the Mumbai segregation; can you explain further?

    For a number of reasons, Mumbai is what we call a ‘communally sensitive’ city – iow, there are periodic spasms of inter-religious violence between Hindu and Muslim groups.  In 1992-93 there was a particularly bad spasm, following the destruction of a mosque in UP that was claimed by some Hindu groups as the site of Ram’s birthplace and a temple.

    Many people fled or were forcibly evicted from ‘mixed’ neighbourhoods, and stayed with ‘their own’ because they felt it was safer.  (Even if you didn’t give two hoots about religion personally, you’d get a fright if the neighbours told you that people from a particular party had been at the building asking if any Muslims lived there, right?) And a follow on from this was a reluctance in certain neighbourhood to rent or sell to people from the ‘other’ community – resulting in an increase in segregation or ghettoisation.

    Similar segregation has resulted from other instances of communal violence in India – such as in Ahmedabad – which imho is a sad thing – but also with some unforeseen outcomes.

    All of this is basically legal, in India, where the Supreme Court upheld the right of housing societies (condos, basically) to buy and sell or not buy and not sell to whomever and whoever, based on freedom of association – thereby making caste or religion specific colonies legit.

    It’s a lower case version of what happened in Lebanon, where the civil war led to almost the almost complete separation of Beirut into Muslim West and Christian East (a self perpetuating residential segregation that more or less endures fifteen years after the civil war ended).  But just like in Lebanon, economically we need each other, and that’s the bond that pulls us together at the same time as fear pushes us apart.

    • #23
  24. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Zafar:

    Amy Schley:

    but also with some unforeseen outcomes.

    I thought that this was an excellent article. Thank you, Zafar.

    • #24
  25. Tom Meyer Member
    Tom Meyer
    @tommeyer

    Fantastic post, James. I learned a lot from it.

    • #25
  26. Sabrdance Member
    Sabrdance
    @Sabrdance

    I retain my nominal and not tightly held support for an independent Kurdistan, but this has moved my needle in the less tightly held direction.  I have a general fondness for smaller governments (in geographic and social terms, I mean -California should be broken up too), but I am also sympathetic to the arguments that if people believe having a larger government with less-ideal policies is still a better deal in financial and political terms, so be it.

    I am not, however, convinced that a system in which various minorities are kept in the government by side-payment is actually sustainable.  If Kurds and Arabs actually thought of themselves as all being part of a single country and they dealt with policies on a national level, that would be one thing.  But as described here, it sounds like they do view themselves as separate countries, bound together by a network of bribes paid for by oil money.  Anything which disrupts that series of bribes would unravel the country.  This is what is killing California -LA and SF don’t think of the Inland Empire as California, so they provide just enough bribery to keep them quiet while they loot the rest of the state.  The result is lousy governance.

    But Iraq may be different, and I don’t know it well enough to have a firm opinion.  Hence: lightly held, and now somewhat more lightly held.

    Errata:

    1.) I’d like to know what patricianing a state is.  I imagine it’s a type -but it sounds like a fascinating concept.

    2.) There’s a better Yes, Minister explanation: Divide and Rule.

    • #26
  27. Sabrdance Member
    Sabrdance
    @Sabrdance

    James Of England:

    Zafar:

    James Of England:

    By the way, in looking stuff up for this, I was reminded of this article. The whole thing is a bottomless pit of dumb, but I was particularly amazed by map 2, and thought that you might enjoy chuckling over it…

    Well that’s certainly going to be a surprise to them in Lahore….

    The residents of Lahore should get together with the Kuwaitis, Sunni Lebanese, and Qataris to organize pilgrimages together. I think the fact checking must have extended to “Which ones are the Iranians? Shia, right? OK, it’s good.”

    The only map in that story I can personally attest to is number 9, which didn’t look that off.  I’m generally happy to accept that Vox doesn’t know a hart from a hind, but could you elaborate?

    • #27
  28. user_241697 Member
    user_241697
    @FlaggTaylor

    This is one of the most compelling analyses of Iraq that I have read. This point is particularly crucial I think:

    Thirdly, offering hope to those who wanted to turn their chunk of Iraq into a despotic state isn’t likely to discourage them. Al Qaeda fought hard to make Anbar (in particular) ungovernable, and some Sunnis worked with them toward that goal. Sadr and his pals did the same with parts of their home turf, and some Iranian groups worked along similar lines. In each case — and, ultimately, decisively with Anbar — the impossibility of taking over the government of all Iraq was a key reason for abandoning the struggle.

    It reminds me of Madison’s analysis in Federalist 18 on the anarchic tendencies of the Achean League and the Amphyctionic confederacy. “The contest of the Greeks always afforded a pleasing opportunity to that powerful neighbor of intermeddling in their affairs.”

    • #28
  29. Tommy De Seno Member
    Tommy De Seno
    @TommyDeSeno

    Bravo on this piece of work James. I tried to skim it over lunch but it’s too insightful for that. Will give it more time after work.

    You have the skeleton of a book here. Consider writing one!

    • #29
  30. James Of England Inactive
    James Of England
    @JamesOfEngland

    Sabrdance:

    James Of England:

    Zafar:

    James Of England:

    By the way, in looking stuff up for this, I was reminded of this article. The whole thing is a bottomless pit of dumb, but I was particularly amazed by map 2, and thought that you might enjoy chuckling over it…

    Well that’s certainly going to be a surprise to them in Lahore….

    The residents of Lahore should get together with the Kuwaitis, Sunni Lebanese, and Qataris to organize pilgrimages together. I think the fact checking must have extended to “Which ones are the Iranians? Shia, right? OK, it’s good.”

    The only map in that story I can personally attest to is number 9, which didn’t look that off. I’m generally happy to accept that Vox doesn’t know a hart from a hind, but could you elaborate?

    Map 2 shows Kuwait, all of Lebanon, and Qatar as being Shia. If you’re familiar with mixed countries, as Zafar is, it shows the wrong parts. There are a few areas where the lines on the map approximate reality, but I’m not sure that they’re even in the majority.

    It’s true that Map 9 and its commentary is a relatively competently done summary of Wikipedia, but the rest of the article mostly fails to achieve that.

    • #30
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