Talk turns to split Iraq
Partitioning cited as way around war
But some military officials say separating Shiites, Sunnis and
Kurds would present new troubles.
By Thomas E. Ricks The Washington Post


Washington — As the U.S. military struggles against
persistent sectarian violence in Iraq, military officers and
security experts find themselves in a vigorous debate over an
idea that just months ago was largely dismissed as a fringe
thought: that the surest — and perhaps now the only — way to
bring stability to Iraq is to divide the country into three
pieces.

Those who see the partitioning of Iraq as increasingly
attractive argue that separating the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds
may be the only solution to the violence that many experts
believe verges on civil war.

Others contend that it would simply lead to new and dangerous
challenges for the United States, not least the possibility that
al-Qaeda would find it easier to build a new base of operations
in a partitioned Iraq.

One specialist on the Iraqi insurgency, Ahmed Hashim, a
professor at the U.S. Naval War College who has served two tours
in Iraq as a reservist, contends in a new book that the U.S.
government’s options in Iraq are closing to two: Let a civil war
occur, or avoid that wrenching outcome through partitioning.
Such a division of the country “is the option that can allow
us to leave with honor intact,” he concludes in “Insurgency and
Counter-Insurgency in Iraq.”

Bush administration officials have expressed relief and
optimism since Iraqi politicians ended a four-month impasse this
month by finally choosing a prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, a
Shiite politician.

Such political milestones, coupled with the ongoing training
of Iraqi security forces, are the cornerstones of U.S. policy and
the keys to building a unified, stable Iraq, U.S. officials say.
At the same time, the continued violence across the country
has convinced some analysts that U.S. options in Iraq are
narrowing, as U.S. influence inside the country and patience at
home for the war wane.

The fundamental fact of Iraq is that insurgent attacks on
Iraqi police and army troops continue essentially unabated, said
Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst of
Middle Eastern security issues.

“There are peaks and valleys,” he said Friday at a seminar of
the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “It goes up and
down, but it seems to grow over time.”

Also, he said, lately there has been a spate of worrisome
large-scale direct attacks on Iraqi police stations and army
outposts, some involving as many as 50 fighters.

The goal of U.S. foreign policy right now, said former
Ambassador James Dobbins, a Rand Corp. expert on peacekeeping,
should be to prevent the country from sliding into a large-scale
conventional civil war.

“Our economic leverage is already essentially gone,” he said
at a recent discussion at the American Enterprise Institute, and
“our military leverage is also a waning asset.”
So he is calling for a much more intense campaign of regional
diplomacy by U.S. officials.

Others say it is too late to go shopping for help in a region
whose governments generally are hostile to U.S. goals in Iraq.

“I agree with Ahmed,” said retired Marine Col. T.X. Hammes, a
counterinsurgency expert who has worked in Iraq on training
security forces there. “The Iraqis are positioning for civil
war,” and so, he said, the United States should be contemplating
a “soft partition” of the country by design, rather than through
violence. An all-out civil war would not only endanger U.S.
troops more but also would be more likely to spill over into
neighboring states and wreak havoc on the international oil
market, Hammes said.

On the other side of the debate are many military insiders
who believe steady progress is being made in Iraq, despite
violence and setbacks.

“I do not agree that there are only two options, especially
these two options” of civil war or breaking the country apart,
said Army Lt. Col. James Gavrilis, a Special Forces officer who
participated in the invasion of Iraq and now works on Iraq issues
for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gavrilis said that allowing a
civil war or a partition of Iraq would be an admission of failure
that is not required by the current situation.

“The potential for civil war is there, certainly, but it is
not as far as many are claiming. We have not seen indicators of
full-scale civil war or mass mobilizations or a collapse of
politics,” said Gavrilis, noting he was expressing his personal
views.
He argued for continuing to emphasize the democratic
revolution that he believes is changing Iraq.

Likewise, Gary Anderson, a retired Marine colonel who in the
past advised the Pentagon on the Iraqi insurgency, thinks the
administration should stay the course.

“I think drawing down our participation … and continuing to
grow security forces that are loyal to the central government
rather than to sects is the way to go, but that is obviously
easier said than done,” Anderson said.

Talk turns to split Iraq
Partitioning cited as way around war
But some military officials say separating Shiites, Sunnis and
Kurds would present new troubles.
By Thomas E. Ricks The Washington Post