It's possible that it's not too late to, should the present "unity" government fail, shepard a fairly peaceable partition, and play the role of arbiter as far as oil rights, etc.

A possibility. Of course I thought we already had assumed the unity government was failing and will fail. The Turks don't want a Kurdistan, and there are oil money issues, but enough money and almost anyone but the real religious nuts will be happy.

It's still going to boil down to doing something about them.

If you have any idea what to do about the religious nuts, I'm all ears.

What do they do in Jerusalem? A very religious city with three major religions there. And you dont often hear of as much violence there as you do in other quarters of Israel/Palestine.

Jack Murtha could be sent in as a peace envoy. It seems he has a plan for fighting terror in Okinawa, maybe he can expand that to somewhere it matters.

When I was a bouncer I used to say there were two things that would solve the gang trouble at the door. Guns, and bullets. But I'm willing to see what Murtha could do. Personally, as I've said before, I don't think Arabs respect too much talking if there's nothing to back it up.

The Iraqi constitution already provides for strong regional control. It is the artifact for what will be.

We cannot stop it. We can delay it, at a strong cost to us. But we cannot stop it.

I always thought that Jerusalem should take a page from the Catholics and become a "Holy City" ruled by three appointed heads of the three religions that consider it to be a Holy Place. A sort of triumvirate, independent of any government.

Maybe that could be a solution in Iraq.

Instead of one unity government, a triumvirate of Kurds, Shias, and Sunnis. The good thing about three is that there would be a majority decision, always.

These three rulers could have their own cabinets and consuls, and then the "working bureacracy" could be something like our own career bureaucrats here. They'd be made up of qualified people from all the different ethnic groups.

A Triarchy.

I think that's true. The idea that we can stay until we wait them out is nonsense. They live there, and they will determine the outcome whenever we go.

Strong regional control makes sense. That doesn't mean there can't be some central authority and cooperations between the regions. How long after the US civil war were there problems integrating people and systems in the south? There need to be some incentives for cooperation. At this point electricity and oil money seem like the best bets to me. Get the people in on protecting THEIR oil and electricity.

And despite the acts of barbarity that appear daily, these are not aboriginal people. They can read and write, add and subtract. They can build roads and watercourses. They know how to use cell phones and computers. They know how to use tools, beyond guns and machettes.

Sure they have clans and tribal allegances, but so do Scotland, Ireland, Ukraine, China, and Japan. Sure they have er, competing religious sects, but plenty of nations have, and plenty have moved beyond such tensions.

They have a long history of civilization. Granted they were plagued by foreign occupation for over 700 years, only to be replaced by domestic monarchy and dictatorship, but they know how to run a modern bureaucracy. They have been their own technocrats. They have been their own teachers and doctors. They are not primitives. Despite the sectarian artrocities.

It's up to them to shake off decades tryanny, and move forward. We can't force that. Arguably all our tanks and gunships may only complicate the requisite evolution.

This whole deal is not some new 'white man's burden.' The sooner they see our hands as clear of the process, the sooner they will move forward.

Here's a link to a very long, very interesting series of articles proposing specific ways a semi-partition could be accomplished.

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060701fare...roundtable.html

The original article to which these authors are replying is at
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faes...ing-saigon.html

Both are very dry but also very interesting analyses of the situation, Bush's policies, and why they aren't working.