What's the major gain of keeping Iraq together?

Why would it not make sense to create 3 states? -- a Kurdish north, Sunni west and Shiite south

Why does it make sense to support the Shiites in general when most other Western allies in the region are majority Sunni nations (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Turkey, etc) and the explicitly Shiite-controlled nations (Iran, Syria, pre-2003 Iraq) have been the ones who provoke the west at the national level?

Excellent questions, Pang. I can't see any logic in trying to maintain an intact Iraq, or any of the others for that matter. We should just exit and let them kill each other off. Given enough time, they will reduce their own population low enough to allow somebody reasonable to colonize the place.

Shouldn't have been there in the first place. It's not America's job to export democracy.

I thought about this too...but not sure it will solve the problem. They will all continue to fight no matter how to slice up the country. If one group gets the oil rich northern portion, the other two will want to take it and the fighting will continue.

They have been killing each other for stupid fluff for the past 2,000+ years, and will continue to do so no matte how you slice up the country. We should have never tried to rebuild that cesspool.

War is rarely about people - but more about interests. Try to find an interest like Oil or weapons market behind that war. You`ll get your answer ...

You think Russia invaded Ukraine because the russians that lived in Ukraine were in danger. Bullfluff - that`s the reason for media.

yankees want iraq oil and if iraq has 3 states then getting that oil is harder since 1 or all 3 states could refuse to sell oil for yankees.

russia wanted same things, oil and other things, but it wasn't willing to pay so it did invasion and took what it wanted and gave world lame excuse about protecting russians in another country.

There are many countries in this situation, mainly in Africa but also India for example. Part of the reason is resources and the lack of viability of some of the components (see Ethiopia for example). Left over from colonial days. Damn British:p

I agree 100%, unfortunately it has little to do with common sense or doing what's right. A unified Iraq in proper working order could threaten Iran, 3 states are much harder to control (US didn't war for a decade to get nothing), as Marshal said it's much harder to barter oil deals and control who gets the oil in 3 states.
Beyond conspiracy theories and manipulation by the US, there is one big reason.
The US is under tremendous pressure to withdraw from Iraq, they took the path of least resistance and least chance for internal wars or strife. Separate states means war for land, resources, and control. If a single country, they at least would have a venue for discussion on matters.


I would guess they are the majority and won the election? Also if most of the rest are the same thing why not have a close ally that is something else and show that the US is friends to all.

the curious part will come when chemical weapons that were captured during the last two weeks in Syria and Iraq start popping up all over the world

http://www.ibtimes.com/...-weapons-facility-1606450

http://www.smh.com.au/...plant-20140620-zsfm4.html

we were led to believe that there were no chemical agents in Iraq ? (also Congress, Parliament etc) ... now, they exist ?

to save me the cost of a new world map?

THANKS OBAMA

Thanks Ali Khamenei.

sorry trife hes too busy cheering for algeria to accept your thanks

you'll need it soon since russia might invade east-ukraine too.

that`s why "exporting democracy" is not my believe. Democracy was not exported in central Africa where stone age people kill each-others using AK-47 and Colt. That`s a weapons market. The democracy was exported to Iraq or some other places instead ...

Russia on this chapter is even worse. USA at least tries to keep it cover and act in some sort of democratic way. Russians ? Oh well - you just wake up with the tank at your window ( literally speaking ).

I believe Turkey was promised no Kurdish state, or seen that insinuated somewhere. Supposedly Dubbya gave it to them in exchange for them supporting the war on terror

If you renege on that promise, you should, it's quite forseeable that Turkey would invade the new Kurdish state..

What if someone invaded America and divided the United States into different countries? It would weaken the country as a whole and decimate the overall economy.Why would we want too allow another country to separate, when America is trying to bring the world together as one Global Nation.

Why keep Iraq as one country? Let's think about what would happen if we broke Iraq up. Firstly, you'd have to do a three way break up at least.

The Kurds will not allow a break up to occur without them becoming independent and seizing several parts of northern Iraq that they don't already control. The Kurds would also look to take territory from Turkey and possibly even Iran. Iran would probably let this happen...so long as no one contested them taking over Southern Iraq. Turkey, however, would be very unlikely to go along with territory loss to the Kurds and would likely invade. I suppose that it's possible that the Kurds would consent to being annexed into Turkey...provided that they be granted the Kurdish territories already in Turkey as part of an autonomous region within Turkey. Essentially, Turkey would become one nation, two countries. I'm not sure that an independent Kurdistan within the nation of Turkey would be agreed to by either side.

Southern Iraq, as I indicated above, would likely be annexed by Iran. The Shiites would probably have no real problem with this, but Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and other allies in the region would take this as a great cause for alarm. The movement of Iranian military forces into Southern Iraq could very well ignite a regional war.

Meanwhile, a strongman of some sort would emerge in Western Iraq. If he didn't try to reunify Iraq, he would certainly invade Syria and toss Assad out on his ass. Iran would not be cool with this, but many of our Middle Eastern allies probably would, thus increasing the odds for a regional war.

Then there's Baghdad, because neither the Sunni's nor the Shiites are likely to accept the other side having control of the former capital. The Kurds might play some shenanigans here in a bid to get the Sunnis to agree to their control of parts of Northern Iraq in exchange for the Kurds supporting the Sunni claim on Baghdad or just leaving altogether.

Try to break Iraq up and let the general conflagration begin.

states cannot peaceful secede from the Union in the US. Not in practice. See the US civil war:P
Unless all sides mutually agree, it's hard to peacefully break up a country no matter how little sense the borders might make. (I guess czeckoslovakia is one of the few examples I can think off of the top of my head).
Yugoslavia didn't work out so well:P
Iraq definately wouldn't work out so well either.

1) they are not split down clear and even borders as to where the people live.

2) the resources and technology in all three areas wont be the same so how do you decide who gets what? How is it done fairly?

3) that would take lots of people who hate eachother working together.

Keep in mind that there is oil in Kurdistan and in Southern Iraq, but the area around Baghdad has all of the people and commerce, but little in the way of oil. Whoever controls Baghdad is going to fight very hard to keep somebody else from walking away with the checkbook.

Basically what's being said is that when all else fails, you pick a few people to line up as a succession of dictator douchebags and leave the country together, but barely functioning. Unless a colossal change of thought process occurs in enough Iraqis willing to fight for their new thoughts of a unified Iraq under shared power, then Iraq might just have a chance. One Ayatollah in Iraq has called for more of a unity government with Sunnis having some say and Iraq being united strongly against ISIS. We'll see how this plays out. The US cannot successfully interfere in the current crisis politics being played out. Taking action against ISIS before Iraq moves towards a unity government would not serve American interests. The US might be able to help the Shiites beat ISIS through US air power, but we'd alienate the Sunnis even further and only leave Iraq headed for the same fight again.

Prior to him becoming VP, I thought Biden was an advocate for this.

Also, in regards to the original post, pre-2003 Iraq was Sunni dominated. In fact, they used chemical weapons against Iraqi Shiites as well as the Kurds.


EDIT: Also, I may disagree with some minor details some are putting forth, but by and large, everything of value I could add has been said. Turkey would never allow an independent Kurdistan, and dividing up the oil equitably is a bigger pain than most diplomats would care to handle. Although it will be interesting if the reports that ISIS is backed by former prominent Sunni Ba'athists prove to be true...

cuz muh freedums

It's all an exercise in futility and a prime example of the arrogance and ignorance of a fledgling nation. I'm as 'All-American' as the next beer swilling, cheeseburger munching small block driver (no sarcasm - I'm a fat, drunk lead-foot) but I'm also a realist. When I set down all of my personal biases, all of my learned prejudices, all of the nonsense fed to me by both major wings of the government AND media (as if there were any real difference....), my untainted logical thought process takes me to the conclusion that: 1) These warring nations around the globe have been warring for hundreds or thousands of years over issues that they are more deeply dedicated to than we as Americans are likely to ever comprehend. We are NOT going to change that and 2) We are a nation merely 238 years on the map and somehow are convinced that it is within our reach to smooth over ideological divides that have had millennia form; more than the fact that it's a fool's errand, it's an even bigger fool's aspiration, bordering on narcissistic.

Somewhere along the line we ought to ask ourselves: can any good fruit grow from the tree I'm planting?

i expect better from you Alin. the US is better because they try to be more sneaky about it? because they try to call it 'exporting democracy' as they overthrow a regime and install one friendly to US interests? how is that "better"? and what russia are you talking about? are you going back to USSR days, or referring to a crimean population that strongly preferred to be a part of russia?

Welcome to the return of 5 buck a gallon gas...

Why not 3 states...

Fine by me, but that will lost a hot second. Little bit of history there between the varying clans fighting over resources and regions. Eventually one will be more brutal than the other and win out. Or other countries will simply take big chunks.

Saddam was actually very chummy with the US for quite some time. He just didn't understand geopolitics enough to realize he was chummy in so much as he maintained a balance.

Splitting up countries doesn't always help, also although there are different religions in the region, they still share a common culture through language, which thrives best when working together... Also, when you divide people based on religion it's not very helpful to the cause of peace, it's best to bring them together so they have mutually shared interests. That creates stability more than anything else, so it makes sense to always pursue that. For example in Israel, there was a time when Palestinians and Jewish people lived together in peace, but of course it was in a period where they worked together and didn't try to divide themselves. Segregation is a huge issue as we're all aware, and creating those borders could potentially divide families and stifle progress towards the communication between different groups... I wouldn't want to change the subject to Ukraine but Russia holds a lot of interests in the Crimean region, their history is filled with accounts of defending the region, and that happened at a time when Ukrainians and Russians worked together against a shared enemy. So I'm sure there are many Ukrainians that remember that, and feel safer behind Russia than the European Union...

Why post this on AT:-p

Oh I dunno about all that. Japan and Germany seem to be doing quite well :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdish_languages

As the article states, Kurdish has common roots with Persian, and it shows that most countries (aside from Syria) seem to be more accepting of the diversity. I guess I should've mentioned that peoples of different languages can coexist, but as I said in terms of the Crimean region the Russians and Ukrainians fought together, I'd say most of them were bilingual but a large majority must've been Ukrainians that spoke Russian. To state that language is the only cultural "mode of transport" would be an exaggeration, because there would be sharing between these groups, and I think that in the past the relationship between them could have been more favourable. Colonialism in that region probably ruined a lot of the earlier ties, though.

Give it all back to the Turks

Western policy in the middle east since WW1 has been to keep the arabs divided and in conflict with each other and to keep the region destabilized. When the arabs get together they do stuff like starting OPEC. The US and Britain couldn't care less about the century of carnage they have caused in the middle east and want it to continue. As long as BP, Exxon Mobil, Shell and co keep sucking up the oil the Western governments are satisfied.

The reasons that were made up about Saddam Hussein, a regime of torture and Weapons of mass destruction were all bullfluff. The US has been proven to be hypocritical by using torture, dropping weapons of mass destruction themselves, and destroying the infrastructure of a once wealthy and civilized nation, Iraq, pounding it down to the level where people are selling their daughters as whores, and the US did that for the sole reason of unlimited greed and an evil disregard for the effects of their robbery and destruction on the lives of regular people.

The day will come when the greed of the Americans will come back to bite them, so keep collecting your pink, flourescent green, and camo coloured guns, you'll need them on your own streets, yanks.

The first paragraph was an accurate portrayal of Western diplomacy and policy. That being said... Having personally operated in support of missions to capture/kill Iraqi insurgents that were planned, led, and executed by Iraqi troops, I'm going to wave the bullfluff flag on the rest of that post.

I also realize it won't change your mind when I try to refute anything you said, so I'm not going to bother. Maybe I'll come back later to mention things like Saddam's well-documented used of WMD's against Iran as well as people living within the borders of Iraq, but it's late and IDGAF. If you honestly think its made up and that W. and every single US and coalition Soldier, Sailor, Airman, and Marine is guilty of war crimes, this veteran won't be able to change your mind.

Getafix, when given what he/she wants would quickly find out that it's not what he/she wants. Sometimes, the fastest way to change some people's minds is to give them exactly what they state they want.

I'm sorry you and so many others got sucked into fighting imperialistic wars against weaker countries who had resources the US wanted, Viceroy. Since many people have to go into the military to get an education in the US, plus you have an entire lifetime of brainwashing and brainless flag waving, its not surprising that your patriotism exceeds your ability to reason.

The history of the world is a sad story of the rich and powerful enslaving, slaughtering and raping the poor and weak. I don't think any country is particularly better than another. I oppose all governments. But you would have to work very hard to persuade me that America's wars for oil in Iraq were justified or moral.

And in my opinion anyone who bombs civilians, whether a crazy Jihadist, a B52 bomber pilot or a drone operator in Utah, is a terrorist.

I'm sorry you live in a fluffty part of the world

Back to back world war champs!

the main reason to keep it together would probably be to get those crazy sectarian arab towel head muslims to learn some tolerance and how to live in peace with other people. might also be easier to nuke it...

Why does everyone think we went into Iraq for the oil? Revenge seems like a far more plausible motivator here.

W. and his camp were staunch Neo-Conservatives, focusing on foreign policy almost to a fault. It was their blank slate when it came to domestic policy that allowed them to bed down with the largest component of the Republican Party, what I call the "Moral Majority" Republicans for lack of a better term. But who were the Neo-Conservatives exactly? Look a W.'s cabinet and you'll realize that his entire administration was filled up with his Daddy's cronies. W. was hardly his own man; he was a blatant proxy for an elder statesman who was no longer electable.

But why Iraq? H.W. had to be embarrassed that all American efforts to isolate and destabilize Saddam's Iraq in the long years following the Gulf War failed to remove him from power or even reduce his influence one iota. He was constantly violating the No Fly Zones and consistently thwarting weapons inspectors in their efforts to confirm that Iraq had in fact disarmed their Chemical Weapons programs. They were especially embarrassed because they were the same ones (during the Reagan administration) who had previously worked so closely with Saddam's regime, providing significant military and logistical support during the war with Iran, before Saddam made them all look like fools by invading Kuwait before the dust had even settled.

Mark my words, this war was not about oil. It was personal.

Let's not forget.
http://en.wikipedia.org/..._the_New_American_Century

And this
http://youtu.be/6BEsZMvrq-I

Or this
http://youtu.be/w75ctsv2oPU

Speaking of where in the world is our foreign policy...

How are we supporting Sunni rebels in Syria against the government and then the Shiite government against the Sunni rebels in Iraq? Bizarre, especially given how ISIS is cross-border these days.

(bonus post)

We are sending you in Trump to straighten things out

Sure, no problem. I'll cut deals with both sides to sell oil and then just pretend the other side lied. Who needs war when you can make money?

LOL they don't seem that into money except to use it to kill each other

You can buy a ceasefire from both sides...you can't buy peace in this case.

Because, India/Pakistan.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.