Senator Joe Biden, Democrat from Delaware, is pushing a new peace plan for Iraq, a variant on the partitioning idea that I mentioned here in early August. Under Biden's plan, a partitioned Iraq would function as a federation of sectarian states, rather than as three separate nations, the aim of most previous partition proposals.But Biden's plan doesn't address the key problem with splintering ideas that has been the sticking-point in previous proposals. A Kurdish nation could be broken off today with very little problem. But, in spite of sectarian violence that has created hundreds of thousands internal refugees in Iraq, the Sunni and Shiite populations and their property are intermingled. Sorting all of that out would be, if not impossible, nearly so.
I don't have answers...and wouldn't offer them if I thought I did. But it will be interesting to see if Biden's plan gets legs as he campaigns for the presidency.
1 comment:
Derek:
Good questions.
But, in the case of the US, I would add that our country had formally covenanted to be a nation, whereas Iraq came about as the result of rather arbitrary map-drawing by the British, as I understand it.
As to dividing this country on the bases of Red State-Blue State fissures, I see these allegiances as rather fleeting things and wouldn't be surprised to see some realigining of the states in the next few presidential election cycles. With an eye to history, one can remember that, once upon a time, the Solid South was in the Democratic column from the Reconstruction Era until 1964. Loyalties to parties, particularly in an era when people are so skeptical about and uncommitted to them, don't really say much about our unity as a country.
The divisions in Iraq are much worse, rooted in histories of mutual hatred and occasional violence. But, in spite of the 19 refugee camps that dot the Iraqi landscape these days, the Biden plan appears to be impractical and not really a solution.
I'm not sure what you're referring to when you speak of partitioning advocated by the UN in the Mideast. Perhaps you could explain that in a subsequent comment.
[By the way, I looked at some of the issues surrounding the near break-up of the US at the time of the Civil War in my series on Lincoln's second Inaugural Address.]
Thanks so much for reading the blog and for your thoughtful comments. God bless you!
Mark
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