Iraq's Slide Towards Partition.

Iraq's Shi'ites are demanding what could result in the partition of their country. This danger re-emerged in Lebanon in recent weeks after the Iranian-sponsored Shi'ite guerrilla group Hizbullah on July 12 captured two Israeli soldiers for an exchange with Lebanese prisoners jailed in the Jewish state. The Hizbullah move sparked off a major Israeli military offensive whose regional implications are yet to occur. Hizbullah's strong defence in the face of the Israeli offensive (see news7-Leb-IsraelPropagandaAug14-06) and its gains in a complicated confrontation risk igniting another cycle of civil war and the partition of the country. What makes the Lebanon danger more serious is the role in the background being played by Iran and Syria against the US, with the latter represented by Israel (see news6-LebanonIranUSAug7-06).

The Shi'ites now constitute the dominant group in Iraq and rule the country. If their demand for autonomy (one step towards partition) comes close to reality, Asia Times Online (ATO) warned on Aug. 11, "the world will witness a disaster of wider magnitude than that which is occurring now". A number of regional players would be involved, especially if US forces were to leave before Iraq is really partitioned.

In the midst of a continuing sectarian violence in Iraq, the Shi'ites have revived their discussion of "remaking" the country through partition. That aspiration lay dormant from the beginning of post-Saddam Iraq.

At first, the chief proponents of partition through a federal system were the Iraqi Kurds, who envisaged the notion of autonomy in northern Iraq as a precursor for an independent state. Saddam was only too aware of those Kurdish aspirations. That was just another reason that he singled out the Kurds for his brutal treatment.

The Shi'ites of Iraq were intrigued about the possibility of autonomy beginning in 2005, when there were some public discussions about such an option. ATO said: "One can fully understand why the Shi'ites were attracted to the idea by looking at the distribution of [proven] oil reserves in that country".

The northern and southern parts of Iraq contain most of its proven oil reserves, whereas the Sunni-dominated central region has long been under-explored and its proven oil reserves are relatively negligible. But the centre of Iraq, also known as "the Sunni Triangle", can become potentially rich in natural gas - particularly in its western desert area bordering with Syria.

The Kurds were more open about their desire not only for autonomy, but also for controlling the sale of oil from the northern Iraqi reserves. In the chaotic election-related environment in 2005, the Shi'ites and the Kurds both openly discussed the notion of federalism, which was envisaged as a tool for making the two groups owners of oil revenues in their respective regions.

The Sunni groups were fully aware of the real aspirations of the Kurds, even during Saddam's rule, but they became even more convinced of the intentions of the Shi'ites in the post-Saddam era. That is precisely why the Sunnis continued to manifest their utter rejection of any suggestion for federalism. They knew that it would leave them at the mercy of the Shi'ites and the Kurds.

However, the principle of "majority rule" enabled the Shi'ites and the Kurds to include in the Iraqi constitution the option of devolution, despite the fact that Sunnis uniformly opposed it. The leader of the main Shi'ite group, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, is proposing the creation of an entity comprising nine southern provinces of Iraq, which also contain 60% of that country's proven oil reserves.

Although this objective is not being overtly presented as an element in the partitioning of Iraq, the Sunni Arab parties envisage it as a covert endeavour of the Shi'ite groups eventually to achieve just that. Shi'ite leaders, particularly Hakim and his allies, are basing their demands for federalism on the fact that the ever-escalating bloodshed stemming from the sectarian violence has made it virtually impossible for the Shi'ites and the Sunnis to live together in peace.

This idea is being promoted as a justification to think publicly about an option which they have been thinking and talking about among Shi'ite ranks for several months before and after the Dec. 15, 2005, parliamentary elections. The permanent constitution which was passed on Oct. 15 calls for federalism. But the Sunni Arab parties entered the Dec. 15 race with the objective of getting the federal option off the constitution.

The Kurdish strategy is to let the Shi'ite leaders do all the work in popularising that objective among their followers. Once it edged towards reality, the Kurds would jump on the partition option to fulfill their own aspiration of having an independent Kurdistan.

The Kurdish leaders know how sensitive Ankara has been about any prospect of Kurdish independence because it would trigger similar demands among the Kurds living inside Turkey. However, if the potential partition of Iraq were to come from Shi'ite demands, the Kurds hope that the partition would become more palatable to the Turks.

The key question is whether the Shi'ites are using the threat of partition as a tactic for scaring the Sunni Arabs into de-escalating the level of sectarian violence. But Shi'ite thinkers have themselves begun to make public their real intentions. They says they need to institutionalise their political gains while the US remains in Iraq. They fear that, once the US gets out, the Shi'ites may see their gains reversed or unravelled.

However, a potential partition of Iraq and/or Lebanon might create a domino effect in the region. In the US, neo-conservative (neo-con) strategists have been calling for a partitioning of the Middle East into many small ethnic and sectarian states - with one scenario having this region broken into 98 mini-states. According to the logic behind such a neo-con scenario is the need of Israel to asset itself as a Jewish state. One of the wild scenarios these days being mentioned is that Arabs, mainly Sunni Muslims, would be transferred from Israel to southern Lebanon where they would replace Shi'ites. Indeed, most of the million-plus southern Lebanese who have been forced to flee their area to the north are Shi'ites.

The Bish administration would not support the partitioning of Iraq. However, Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, who is a ranking member of the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations, has publicly advocated that option. Consequently, there is the likelihood that, as the presidential election of November 2008 approaches, the Biden suggestion might become part of the official platform of the Democratic Party. Biden is considered a potential candidate to run for president in 2008.

The Sunni Arab groups - especially those who are now participating in the national unity government - might decide that their best strategy is to support an escalation of the insurgency. This would mean more murderous violence between the Sunnis Shi'ites.

The Neo-Salafi groups, such as Iraq's branch of al-Qaeda, have worked hard on getting the sectarian violence to escalate. Non-Iraqi volunteers still constitute a majority inside each of these radical Sunni groups.

The brutal reality about Iraq is that anything other than the continuance of government under the national coalition, with Iraq as a unified country, would be disastrous. Even though the national unity government is facing a huge amount of hardship, there is always the hope that, as an elected body, it will eventually succeed in making Iraq a peaceful and stable place with its current borders remaining intact.

In a new book, "The End of Iraq", former US ambassador to Croatia Peter Galbraith argues that the US failure to create a stable government in post-Saddam Iraq means it is probably better to just let the country break up into three separate countries - "an independent Kurdistan in the north, an Iranian-dominated Shiastan in the south, a Sunnistan in the northwest".

Galbraith adds: "There is no good solution to the mess in Iraq. The country has broken up and is in the throes of civil war. The United States cannot put the country back together again and it cannot stop the civil war. If it scales back its ambitions, it can help stabilize parts of the country and contain the civil war. But the US needs to do so quickly".

In a review of the book David Ignatius, syndicated columnist for The Washington Post, writes that Galbraith's idea is not as easy a solution as it might sound. So what of the fundamental question he raises? Is the Iraq venture doomed? Is the Bush administration wasting American and Iraqi lives pursuing a vision of a new, unitary Iraq which has no connection with reality? Should the US conclude, as Galbraith does, that Iraq itself is finished?

A columnist in the Boston Globe wrote: "When I put the matter to some of the Iraqis I have met in the 26 years since I first visited that country, they warned that, bad as things are now, they would be even worse if America pulled out suddenly. In the end, accepting partition may amount to accepting reality - but that's a measure of just how bad things have gotten in Iraq. We made the mistake of rushing into Iraq without thinking carefully enough about the consequences of our actions. We should not make the same mistake in rushing out".

Gen. Casey on Aug. 7 told ABC television that rising violence in the country meant the US would not be able to reduce troops levels as it once had hoped to do. The Associated Press has reported that, instead of "standing down", the US will now have to battle with Shi'ite and Sunni extremists to take back the streets of Baghdad. The US currently has around 132,000 troops in Iraq.