A Line in the Sand

For the past two years we have seen why the United States did not invade Iraq 15 years ago. It has nothing to do with our troops being wounded or killed, it is because Iraq in the cold war world was run by one strongman after another, holding the country together by force of will and force of arms. That meant oppression for the groups not in power, but that is nothing new around the world.

Iraq is roughly 20% Kurdish, 20% Sunni, and 60% Shi'a. Under Saddam, the Sunni minority ruled, and the Shi'a and Kurds got the short end of the stick. We have now removed Saddam, a dictator we helped create, and the result is Iraq is ready to Balkanize, just like, oddly enough, the Balkans following the death of Tito. There is of course a problem with that. No one wants to let the territory of any of the others go (except maybe the Kurds, who would be happy to create a Kurdistan). The Shi'a want one big country, because one big country is safer than three samller ones. The Sunni's want one big country because if is partitions, all they get is where they are, and the only thing where they are is sand. The Kurds don't really give a damn. One big country or three little ones is all the same to them, because either way, they're making an autonomous Kurdistan, and whether it is its own country or an independant part of an Iraqi Federation, they don't really care.

The Kurds and Shi'as areas have oil. The Sunnis have sand. Whatever the result of their attempts to form a government, whether we stay or not, Iraq promises to be an unstable wreck for years to come.