"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal
Iraqi officials say sectarian break-up is inevitable
In some sense this might not be such a bad idea. “Iraq” as a country is an artificial construct which was apparently being held together primarily by the brutal rule of Saddam Hussein. Self-determination for its various ethnic/religious groups might well be preferable.
Unfortunately, a break up of the country would likely bring problems of its own. Here’s an article discussing some of the relevant issues.
Unfortunately, we cannot go back to pre-WWI (or earlier!) and give these people a little bit of self-determination to figure out what they want. For better or worse they have been joined together in a nation-state under colonial rule (back to the Ottomans and the British) and dictatorial rule for much of their history. Fracturing the state – already a reality in many respects – will lead to bloodbaths in mixed areas and an increased radicalization in the new states that are formed around ethic/religious-specific areas.
I know this is so American/PC/Multicultural of me, but can’t we all just get along? I do not like the precedent of dissolving or creating nations based on religious or ethnic characteristics (that’s what the West did in Israel and also in Yugoslavia). Such divisions say that diverse peoples cannot live together, that we must each have our own little slice of geography, and that within that little slice of geography people who look like us, pray like us, talk like us are “IN,” whereas those who look different, pray different, talk different – they are “OUT.”
Of course, America is just as Balkanized as Iraq or the Balkans, but we enforce our divisions with zoning ordances rather than with Kalishnakovs or IEDs. More about that in a future post over at my place . . .
A Thinking Reed 
Leave a reply to Lutheran Zephyr Cancel reply