The End of Iraq

I just finished this book over the Labor Day weekend. It was a quick read, and more illuminative than anything I've picked up either online or in the major news media in the past few years. It was written by Peter Galbraith, who has a history of aiding the Kurds to develop their own state and eventually independence , and he makes a pretty persuasive case that the only sensible solution at this point would be to partition Iraq into three separate states, maybe under one national government. He argues that Kurdistan is already its own independent state, it refuses to allow Iraqi federal government agencies to open offices in Kurdistan, the Iraqi government must ask permission to enter Kurdistan, and it will not even fly the Iraqi flag.

Galbraith argues that people have a psychological attraction to retain Iraq into one state, and it is this attraction that has led to the current untenable situation. The Bush administration has pushed for a non-ethnic (that is, non-Shia or non-Sunni) army at exactly the time that all Iraqis are using their ethnic identity for protection and political affiliation. He cites the Iraqi elections to validate his point, where Iraqis overwhelmingly voted along sectarian lines.

The result (according to Galbraith) is the current intractable mess we're in.

I suppose I share some of the psychological attraction to retaining Iraq as a unified state, but Galbraith makes the most reasonable case I've yet heard about exactly what to do.

Also, the Bush administration are even far greater wankers than was previously known, even by me. And I am familiar with much of their wankitude.