Flame me if you must, but is an Iraq civil war such a bad thing? [View All]

[johnaries]

The current boundaries of Iraq were just arbitrarily decided by the French and British, or as Wikipedia says:

~Iraq was carved out of the Ottoman Empire by the French and British as agreed in the Sykes-Picot Agreement. On 11 November 1920 it became a League of Nations mandate under British control with the name "State of Iraq".

The British government laid out the political and constitutional framework for Iraq's government. As a consequence, the new political system suffered a lack of legitimacy. Britain imposed a Hāshimite monarchy on Iraq and defined the territorial limits of Iraq with little regard for natural frontiers and traditional tribal and ethnic settlements. Britain had to put down a major revolt against its policies between 1920 and 1922.~
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Iraq

Basically, the current Iraq came into being because some politicians a continent away who knew nothing about the people or the area drew some lines on a piece of paper and said "we'll call this one Iraq".

Ever since then, we've been trying to force round pegs into square holes.

Personally, I think the Kurds in the North should be allowed to re-form Kurdistan. The South may be absorbed by Iran, but there is a serious Democratic movement in Iran - but our polices in the Mid-East are undermining that movement.

The problem is the center section. Most of the oil is in the North and the South, although most of the "cultural centers" are in the center. But why not let the Iraqis work that out?

These are very proud, very strong-willed people. Frankly, when I read the book DUNE I can't help thinking that the Fremen were based on the people in this area. (seriously, read the book. Not any of the movies, not the sequels - read the original. Then read it again, it's actually better the second time! You'll be amazed at how much you missed the first time!)

I don't want to sound like a Saddam sympathizer, but once you learn more about the people and the make-up of Iraq the more you understand that the ONLY way to "hold together" so many groups of people that hate each other so violently is through strict authoritarian and violent means.

The alternative is to let the "nation" that is not a nation fall apart, and let the people actually decide their own fate, and decide their own boundaries.

To try to force stability on an instable system is folly. Better to let the instable system settle into it's own stability.

Of course, we are talking about an area that is one of the primary sources of oil here - but, if we switched our infrastructure to non-oil based energy sources (which we can do, TODAY!), it wouldn't be an issue.

OK, go ahead, flame me.