Should Iraq be divded in a manner similar to Bosnia and Herzegovina?

[Frodo]

Yes, Iraq should be divided, and so should a number of other nation-states created by European imperial powers with consequently artificial borders with populations that have proven that they cannot peacefully coexist within the same polity.   

[ottermax]

Yes. This is a perfect alternative to splitting up nations or a strong central government. This is what should happen in places around the world where people feel that they don't belong, without having to create new countries just because of differences in race, language, or religion. I'm a big fan of multiculturalism.

[The Mikado]

Yes, Iraq should be divided, and so should a number of other nation-states created by European imperial powers with consequently artificial borders with populations that have proven that they cannot peacefully coexist within the same polity.   

Doesn't that presume that the modern nation-state model (one ethnic group to one country) is the only way to organize affairs?

Look at India, with its hundreds of ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups!  Surely it's not totally peaceful, but if we followed your example, it'd be divided into several dozen countries.  Pakistan would (at least) be split into Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan, and a new Pashtunistan (with Kashmir perhaps becoming independent as well).

Maybe what is needed is a restoration of the old-fashioned multinational empires.  Bring back the Ottomans!

[Frodo]

Yes, Iraq should be divided, and so should a number of other nation-states created by European imperial powers with consequently artificial borders with populations that have proven that they cannot peacefully coexist within the same polity.   

Doesn't that presume that the modern nation-state model (one ethnic group to one country) is the only way to organize affairs?

It was worded badly (should have simply used the word 'countries'), but you know what I meant. 

You must be logged in to read this quote.

 

India is not in danger of becoming a failed state like so many others. 

You must be logged in to read this quote.

And that's not exactly a prospect I would necessarily dread.  I would add also that the Pashtuns should have their own state.  The British were wrong to have split their ancestral homeland so arbitrarily. 

[dead0man]

I'd let the Kurds go on their own path, screw what Turkey and Iran thinks about it.  Let the Sunnis and Shiites fight over the rest of it, they seem to be keen on doing it one way or the other.

[Meeker]

I wrote a paper advocating this back in June of 2005 for a summer class before it was "cool". I was really excited when legitimate people started advocating it as well

[phk]

This idea is overly simplistic.

What about the fact that Arab Shias from Najaf hate other Shias from Karbala?

What about the fact the Sunni Tikritis loathe those Sunni Samara'is to their immediate south?

And why is it that a Kurdish Sunni gentleman from the Mizuri tribe, and who follows the Naqshbandi Sufi rite and speaks in the Bahdinani dialect, would be reluctant to give his daughter's hand to a Sunni Kurdish Jaff tribesman who belongs to the Qadiri Sufi order and speaks in the Sorani dialect?

By that measure, traveling the six hour journey from Baghdad to Basra would require applying for six different visas and crossing six different borders.

Even crossing from one neighborhood into another would involve international law.

It's reminiscent of the time when an English lady, Gertrude Bell, set out in the beginning of the 19th century to explore the Middle East and had to seek the benevolence of every tribal sheikh into whose territory she wandered.

She was responsible for creating Iraq in its present form. She must have realized that in carving up the former domains of the Ottoman Empire, there would be a limit to atomization, and that at one point, groups of people, whether they be tribes, neighborhoods, towns, sects or religions, needed to get along and find a common unifying identity.

She did not live to see what local spin-offs on Fascism, and the Cold War, as well as the curse of oil wealth, did to her creation. She certainly did not foresee that present day jihadists would set out to forcefully reunify all the former lands that constituted the Ottoman Empire and some other realms under a caliphate.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

I don't think it's a bad idea - however, the consequences are quite extreme.

When the map was drawn after WWI, there was no indication of oil reserves, if you were to carve Iraq up based on ethnic basis - Kurd, Sunni and Shi'ia - you'd have concentrations of oil wealth in the hands on the Shi'ia and the Kurds. Now, neither Turkey or Iran are exactly keen on the idea of Iraqi Kurds having oil wealth.  Let alone the issues the Sunni's have with being largely without their old power base, and without significant oil reserves. Then that would leave Iraqi Shi'ias with only Iran as allies, and the Sunnis with Saudi Arabia.

It's a mess within a mess, within a cock-up.