Kaufmann: Iraq Partition Fait Accompli
Chaim Kaufmann writes
' Juan, your piece in Salon objecting to a possible partition of Iraq is factually right about virtually everything -- but addresses the wrong question: The issue is no longer whether to partition Iraq, but whether anyone can stop Iraq from partitioning itself.
In the North a /de facto/ partition is in place. In the South partition is taking shape as a result of the civil war and ethnic cleansing.
Who could prevent partition? As you point out, Iran will not. Turkey opposes a /de jure /Kurdish state, but does it care what happens in the rest of Iraq? You mention a Saudi initiative to try to generate religious authority for an end to killing in Iraq, but I cannot tell whether you think that this has a realistic chance of stopping the war.
It is true that partition will not end all motives for Sunnis and Shia to continue fighting or to resume fighting later, but the continuing separation of the populations will gradually reduce what is the most important motive driving the war now.
Incidentally, the Indo-Pakistani wars from 1948 onward were not due to British imposition of partition. There was a civil war in Punjab during partition in 1947 because the partition line took no account of Sikh interests. Partition did not, however, cause any of the Indo-Pakistani wars from 1948 onwards: the 1971 war was caused by internal repression within Pakistan, by Punjabis against Bengalis. All of the other wars (1948, 1965, 1999, the ongoing rebellion) were caused by the *failure* to include Kashmir in the 1947 partition, leaving that former princely state up for grabs.
Chaim '
Chaim Kaufmann
Associate Professor
International Relations
Lehigh University
posted by Juan Cole @ 11/01/2006 12:12:00 AM
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4 Comments:
As an Indian, I do not know where to begin to contest Prof. Kaufmann's arguments...
The ongoing problem regarding Kashmir is too twisted to abbreviate in a 50 word sound bite... Suffice to say that the contesting interests of a secular India vis a vis a posture of Pak-istan (Sacred land) went above and beyond what Sher-e-Kashmir Abdullah had envisioned during his time in prison...
Setting aside the inner twists and turns of Sheikh Abdullah's vision versus Eretz Pakistan and Eretz India, the larger issue of Punjab, as opposed to the aspiration of the Sindh and the Baluch and the Pakhtun provinces continues to plague the sub-continent...
However, to posit that the Brits had nothing to do with this mess is an overwhelmingly neo-caucasion version of history...
I leave it to scholars in both India and Pakistan to resolve that hollow argument.
Hmmm...Prof Kaufman, Associate Professor of International Relations might need to revisit his reading of the Indian Partition.
A common thread amongst historians is that the entire process of partition was too hurried - a delicate operation carried out with too blunt an instrument.
I see parallels with the possible hurried departure from Iraq of the foreign forces too - leaving the warring factions to solve the problem on their own.
Will it be any different from India? Yes, instead of the problem of ethnicity being sorted out by swords, spears, fire and stone, this time round in Iraq it will be AK47s, rocket propelled grenades, Claymore mines and car bombs.
Federalism has become irrelevant. The state of Iraq will either be finished within the 18 months to the implementation, or the current secterian regime is dismantled which would make a Shiia/Sunni partition pointless.
Iraq is already in a deep comma. The quarter of a million Iraqi forces and the might of the US power cannot control Anbar: total population less than a million. Provinces, and parts of them can be hijacked by relatively small numbers of armed groups, which is precisely whar will happen unless the state regain its authority.
My bet is on the other option: a reverse coup where Maliki sacks the ministers and dissolves parliament. The stakes are far too high to allow this savagery to go on, not only for Iraq but for the whole world, and the presence of the American troops will make the coup child play. The gameplan is to give all the players rope to hange themselves with in the forthcoming reconciliation conference whic has apparently be delayed, once again to 20th of November. Needless to say, the monsters will either start a shouting match, or pretend to agree, then torpedo all what has been agreed within 24 hours.
Once the heads of the serpents are out of power, and possibly in custody or under house arrest, you will find their foot soldiers scurrying for cover and paying for ads in the newspapers denying they ever had anyhting to do with them.
As a Bangladeshi ( born in 1945 - before the partition) I can only take umbrage at the simplistic analysis of the post WWII politics of the Sub-Continent. It is such, on-the-fly, shoot from the hip, analyses by the residents of academia, and duly parroted by mentally challenged politicians that allows us to live in this peaceful and serene world!
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