The P-Word

Is it too early to discuss what is, with or without U.S. consent, a likely culmination of the war in Iraq: Partition?

Aren’t the internal pressures such that Iraq is destined to spin off into three separate parts? An independent northern Kurdistan. A central Sunni hell. And a fundamentalist Shia nation in the south. Should we oppose that? Or ease its emergence?

Former Pentagon political-military analyst Lt. Col. (ret) Karen Kwiatkowski edges toward that suggestion in her latest column.

She doesn’t use the P-Word but her suggested strategy would pave the way for a carve-up. You can read her entire column at militaryweek.com. An excerpt:

[U.S. forces could] pull back into a subset of friendly Guantanamo-style Iraqi outposts. In places like Kurdish Mosul or Shia Basra, we can pick our own friendly hosts and spend the bulk of the $67 billion base building and security money on these must-have facilities. As we withdraw to our friendly zones, we get to keep military access. As cities like Baghdad and Fallujah settle down, we might negotiate with the emergent leadership there for additional military access. Or not.

Kwiatkowski quit the now infamous Office of Special Plans on the eve of the war and has since been publicly trashing the neocons who ran the shop (the one Woodward quotes Colin Powell deriding as the Gestapo).

I interviewed Kwiatkowski in February. She claimed, among other accusations, that the OSP never conducted any serious intelligence and instead built what she called a “propaganda” justification for the inevitable invasion:

So there was no debate over WMD, the possible relations Saddam Hussein may have had with terrorist groups and so on. They spent their energy gathering pieces of information and creating a propaganda storyline. The very phrases they used are coming back to haunt them because they are blatantly false and not based on any intelligence. The OSP and the Vice President’s Office were critical in this propaganda effort — to convince Americans that there was some just requirement for pre-emptive war.

Is her advice to partially pull back into guarded enclaves now the practical option?

Comments

[Willie]

I dunno about Karen's idea. It seems to me an untenable middleground and maybe misses the point. Where the US has to backdown is on the political front, not the military. Bush should allow the UN to piece together the broadest and most realistically appealing political coalition to govern Iraq and lead to elections. If anything, the US would have to increase military security, not withdraw into enclaves. I dont think any of this will happen.

[Michael J. Totten]

Most Shi'ites have no desire for a theocratic state. But that doesn't mean there won't be ethnic problems.

Here is a very interesting article called The Case for Partitioning Iraq.

http://www.techcentralstation.com/042004A.html

The writer does not argue what you think he is going to argue. It's far more interesting than all that. I don't know if I agree with him or not, but this is the most compelling case I've seen yet.

[Marc]

Michael.. first of all happy anniversary. The article you flagged is indeed provocative. Certianly popular partition is favorable to all other forms. Just saw Nightline and found the reports from Basra devastating.

[steve]

Why negotiate with three parties over oil when you can have one leadership that you've conquered and bought off in a country? and there's little likelihood Iraqis will accept a partition (they're very opposed to Kurdish autonomy), especially one that is externally imposed and designed with the intention of making it easier for Americans to find leaders they like, which Karen is quite plain about.

[steve]

http://southerlybuster.blogspot.com/2003_11_23_southerlybuster_archive.html#106986292020845063

[steve]

and some more cold water thrown on marc's partition plan...from that far extreme left winger Juan Cole...

http://www.juancole.com/2003_11_01_juancole_archive.html#10697468865180806

[Tim]

Hi Marc. I have been thinking that partition is a possible final result, as you know. Some discussion of the long, disastrous and shameful history of this "solution" would now be in order: Cyprus, Ireland, Bosnia, Vietnam, Palestine/Israel, Pakistan/India and going back further no doubt many more cases we have forgotten about. In any case, it will have zero to do with what Iraqis want to do with their country, notwithstanding the ample field of candidates to take over the rump states.

[steve]

Major german engineering firm pulled out of iraq...they were working on power stations...it's going to be a very interesting summer in baghdad...good intentions of the 'coalition' aside...

[Michael J. Totten]

Steve: "Why negotiate with three parties over oil when you can have one leadership that you've conquered and bought off in a country?"

You're never going to understand American foreign policy if you can't think outside that box.

[Marc]

To Tim: Oh very much agreed about the history of partitioning. It's not a pretty sight. Nor would I argue that it is preferrable. My intention was to suggest that it might be inevitable because of the forces unleashed by the invasion.
To Steve.. wow. You have a one track mind. And note, Im still keeping track of how many days and weeks you can barrel ahead and never but once afform what you are for. Are you why the left is so marginal?

[steve]

You're never going to understand American foreign policy if you can't think outside that box.

--it's funny how the 'we did it for good reasons' lobby jumps on the word oil everytime, as though anyone who mentions oil must think that the *only* reason we went in was for *oil*...Read just a little of writers like Ellen Wood, David Harvey, or even Chomsky for that matter...the accusation that the left thinks it's 'all about oil' is pretty unusual...

[steve]

You have a one track mind.

--marc you always throw out these claims with no apparent reference...or was it that i used the word oil, therefore you conclude that all i think about is oil...
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And note, Im still keeping track of how many days and weeks you can barrel ahead and never but once afform what you are for. Are you why the left is so marginal?

--heck no, and we're not that marginal, you must be kidding. in 1965 you couldn't see this kind of antiwar movement...nor could you see segments of the labor movement involved in antiwar activism...don't be so cynical.....
i'm for the same crazy bizzaro far left extremist things that Seymour Melman is for...
w/re: Iraq, obviously i support an immediate pull out of American troops, we don't belong there, we're not doing anything productive--ok, we've introduced the Iraqis to rock and roll music, ha ha--and, to quote a British commander, too many of our troops regard Iraqis as untermensch...when even your friends say that about you...it's time to cast yourself free of illusions...

oh, i know, if we leave Iraq the country will be in a 'civil war'...therefore we must protect the poor iraqis from themselves....

That could make sense from a conservative strategic standpoint.

It would enable the US to maintain bases in Iraq, a major reason for the war. And let's not forget that the oil is not spread all over the country.

[steve]

It would enable the US to maintain bases in Iraq, a major reason for the war. And let's not forget that the oil is not spread all over the country

--ah yes, the unnecessary maintenance of a US military base presence in an Arab country...hmmm that really helped prevent 911...eh? some strategy indeed!

[Michael J. Totten]

Steve: "i support an immediate pull out of American troops...oh, i know, if we leave Iraq the country will be in a 'civil war'...therefore we must protect the poor iraqis from themselves...."

I can hear your sarcasm even in text.

Your posts remind me of a Doctor Seuss cartoon from 1941. You can see the cartoon here.

http://whoknew.typepad.com/whoknew/2003/10/the_savage_left.html

And here is a description: An aristocratic woman is sitting in her easy chair, wearing a shirt that says "America First." She is reading her children a story from a book called "Adolf the Wolf." She says: "And the wolf chewed up the children and spit out the bones...but they were Foreign Children and it didn't really matter."

Maybe you don't care about the wellbeing of Iraqis. But you're quite wrong to assume that we hawks (conservative or otherwise) share your shrugging isolationism.

[steve]

I can hear your sarcasm even in text.

--real sharp there cappy.
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Your posts remind me of a Doctor Seuss cartoon from 1941. You can see the cartoon here.

--oh god, not the 1941 analogy again...i think that that one's been dropped from the talking points list after it got effectively refuted time and time and time again...even Todd Gitlin refuted it when an 80 year old vet brought it up on Minnesota Public Radio *before* the great invasion began!
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And here is a description: An aristocratic woman is sitting in her easy chair, wearing a shirt that says "America First."

--oh how drole, the equation of a leftist with Pat Buchanan...yeah...a leftist calls for withdrawl, that equals isolationism...quite the logical leap there...
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Maybe you don't care about the wellbeing of Iraqis. But you're quite wrong to assume that we hawks (conservative or otherwise) share your shrugging isolationism.

--you're wrong to assume i'm an isolationist. as a matter of fact, think about who is the greatest object of your scorn...journalists who go to iraq and document what is happening, supporters of the Iraqi resistance [oops, i mean 'terrorist--evil doers'], cross borders union solidarity activists, etc etc.... [talk about the ultimate non-isolationist stance]... I'm not wrong to assume that Richard Perle or George Bush are less than sincere in their expressed concern about the Iraqi people...if they were, they'd have answers for this kind of nonsense:
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0416/vest2.php

oh, ok, i guess the journalist who wrote that is an 'isolationist'....
btw, if you're against the right of a country like the US to go into a sovereign country and declare all its assets immediately subject to privatization...is that being isolationist?

[steve]

btw, where does Juan Cole fit in in your dichotomy of 'isolationist lefist' 'and non-isolationist right-wing'...

the 'anyone who disagrees with US foreign policy is an isolationist' formula fails pretty quickly...eh?

[Michael J. Totten]

Steve,

I didn't create any dichotomy between an isolationist left-wing and a non-isolationist right-wing.

For one thing, I am not right-wing. And for another, I levelled the charge at you as an individual.

You put the word "terror" in quote marks, as if blowing up civilians in Basra, including a bus load of children, isn't terrorism. As if blowing up the UN office isn't terrorism. As if attacking the Red Cross and the "wrong" kind of mosque isn't terrorism. You're dismissive at the thought of an Iraqi civil war while sneering that hawks are the ones who don't care about the Iraqi people.

So yeah, "they were foreign children so it didn't really matter" seems to apply to you personally. Todd Gitlin hasn't exactly refuted that. Only you can.

Maybe I read you wrong. You can demonstrate that by taking the sneer quotes away from the word terror and stop shrugging at ethnic/religious/political civil war.

What we do in Iraq is a matter of life and death to the people who live there. If we leave, tens of thousands will die at the hands of Baathists and religious fascists. Hey, maybe it's worth it to you if that keeps Kentucky Fried Chicken out of Baghdad. But it's not worth it to me, nor is it worth it to your secular left-wing counterparts in Iraq. How about a little solidarity?

[steve]

wow michael, nothing like putting words in someone's mouth to 'refute' them...

[Michael J. Totten]

Steve,

Okay, the Kentucky Fried Chicken thing was a cheap shot. I take it back.

You do seem to have an obsessive fear of privatization, though. There are worse things in the world. Saddam was one of them. And so is the so-called Iraqi "resistance."

[steve]

I confused you with john. however, you do seem to think that people who oppose the illegal invasion and occupation of iraq are somehow per se isolationist, there's little good evidence of that. in fact, most of the momentum has come from the left for antiwar organizing, which tends to support ideas like aid to poor nations, the UN, etc. the equation of anti-war with isolationism is an illusion largely promoted by the big media i'm afraid

i put 'terrorists' in quote marks, i.e., the claim that the resistance to the occupation in Iraq is all about terrorists run amuk is just ignoring the on the ground reality, which now *even* prowar newspapers like Wash. Post and WSJ are acknowledging in their reporting...
you ask about children being blown up, that doesn't sound much different from what Rumsfeld et all cavalierly call 'collateral damage', unless you're arguing that the bombers yesterday were actually aiming for the school bus...no one has made that claim...does it make it right or desirable? no, no more desirable surely than when GIs shoot in 360 degree directions and oops, kill or injure a dozen, two dozen...but again, in the latter situation it's called 'collateral damage' by the war lobby...if the resistance does something morally similar, it's 'terrorism' NO QUESTIONS ASKED...

attacking mosques...well, we bomb mosques ourselves...i don't see the point, all's fair in love and war it seems, unless you're gonna tell me the resistance in Iraq is just resisting for the fun of it, which few are willing to argue anymore...Is it black and white in any event? much of the resistance is so loosely cooridinated, it seems odd to talk of a few events as though that were the resistance. are the fighters in fallujah the same people who blew up a crowd at the mosque? doubtful, at least from what i read of moderate and informed voices like Juan Cole...I mean if it's ok for Juan Cole to discern between the different types of resistance and not to just broadly categorise them as 'evildoer terrorists'...well, it should be ok for non-expert leftists like myself to do the same...
i don't see civil war that you see. in fact remarkably, despite the claims from Senor and Kimmit, 2 people who know probably even less about Iraq than you or I, the civil war predicted has not come to pass, even with the bombings that are clearly designed to push ethnic rivalry.
That you believe the only resistance in Iraq is religious fascism and/or baathist is really telling, i suggest you read more of Mr. Cole...and keep in mind he is not wild about the resistance either, but he still does not talk about it in such simplistic terms...I would bet among themselves in private neither do our congressional reps or senators for that matter.

I don't mind if there is kentucky fried chicken...i prefer chippottes...but then again, I'm SOOOOO PC [!] in Iraq, but I do mind if our country forces Iraqis to have state assets privatized just because Jerry Bremer and Chalabi think it's a dandy idea...I would think you could see what that would be a problem.

It's not true that saddam was against privatization, as long as it benefitted him or his clique he had no problem with it...but that's not really relevant...

[steve]

an example of the US command knowing less about Iraq than you or I:

Lieutenant-General James Conway said he believed around 200 hardcore foreign fighters remained in Fallujah and accused them of stoking tensions in the Sunni Muslim bastion.

--I rest my case

[steve]

and now for a moment of not being PC...

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0422-04.htm

[Michael J. Totten]

Okay, Steve. We still don't agree, but thanks for fleshing out your views.

[John P]

Steve,
Now why would you assume that I'd get so snippy about your Bolshy polemics? You are smoking something though, if you really buy in to the notion that there's a popular armed resistance against the occupation.
Even comrade Burns concedes that the armed thugs are small in number and do not have the support of the people.
BTW I'm curious if you've read any of the Iraqi blogs like Healing Iraq, Iraq and Iraqis, and Iraq teh Model.
Its not scientific, but its an indication of what some Iraqis are thinking...
As for partition, I say no. Balkanization will breed more war and manipulation from supporting castmembers, ie: Iran, Turkey, Syria.
Anyway Steve, I needs to put a couple of pennies in there after you mistook Michael's post for my own.;-)
JP