PARTITION IS NOT THE ANSWER
By Natalie Smolenski, Brown Daily Herald

Brown Daily Herald , Brown Univ., Rhode Island
December 4, 2006 Monday

PROVIDENCE, R.I.

The Nov. 28 column by Michal Zapendowski ’07, "An exit strategy for
Iraq," failed to address the historical and geographic connections
that bind Iraq’s Sunni, Shi’a and Kurd communities. These linkages
could not be destroyed except by way of violence on a heretofore
unprecedented scale.

First, Zapendowski did not take into account the irregular distribution
of the country’s natural resources — specifically oil, which in Iraq
is located predominately in majority-Kurd and Shi’a regions. Because
oil accounts for 95 percent of the Iraqi government’s revenues, a
Sunni state with negligible oil could not sustain itself except as
the humiliated client of a neighbor or a more powerful regional ally.

Second, though Zapendowski did speak to the demographic difficulties of
partition by invoking the Yugoslav precedent and proffering population
exchange as a solution, he overlooked an important Middle Eastern
instance of population exchange for the sake of state formation: in
1924, Western, Greek-speaking Muslims living in what is now Greece
were exchanged for Turkish-speaking Christians from Anatolia. Though
the process helped form Turkish and Greek states, it was based upon
a fever of cultural de-hybridization which had already resulted in
the genocide of Turkey’s Armenian population. A population swap is
never a peaceful maneuver in which residents simply exchange places
of residence; it is accompanied by an uprooting of the national and
sub-national soul.

Furthermore, Baghdad, the capital that has most often been suggested
for a "Sunni state" in Iraq is by no means a simple ethnic equation.

Its northeastern slum, Sadr City, houses some of the most fervent
Shi’a militias. Similarly, the mixed Sunni/Shi’a area directly south of
Baghdad has been termed the "Triangle of Death" by occupation forces
because of the population’s constant contestation over community
jurisdictions. No foreign overseer, no matter how well-intentioned,
could quash the indigenous violence springing from a nationwide
partition plan based on politically defined demarcations. Coalition
forces’ frustrations with containing current violence would seem
insignificant compared with the all out border warfare that would
accompany the establishment of three nebulous, neighboring states.

Though it may seem counterintuitive to some Western observers, many
Iraqis favor the borders drawn for them by British colonialists and do
not consider their communities politically incompatible. Despite the
shortcomings of coexistence, partition would culturally, economically
and militarily devastate Iraq’s population.

The closest viable alternative to what Zapendowski suggests may be
a federated Iraq, under one central government with three provinces.

Though the Kurds have functioned successfully under such a system for
the past 15 years, the fortunes of the Sunni and Shi’a communities
appear to be far more intertwined. The relevant question for Americans
is: to what extent can our continued military presence help bring
about federated or unified peaceful coexistence for Iraq’s major
cultural communities?

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress