God will not punish us for partitioning Iraq but will certainly punish us for allowing so many Iraqis to die. - Sheik Ahmed al-Lami

No one here accepts to be ruled ever again by the other. - Kosrat Ali, Kurdistan’s Vice President 

The current problems in Iraq can be traced to British meddling in the area after WWI. The land now called Iraq was composed of the three Ottoman vilayets, or districts, of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra.  Great Britain, still an active colonial power, pieced these three administrative regions together without consulting the Iraqi people, yet the patch-quilt result gave birth to the modern-day nation of Iraq.  A puppet government was created to extend British influence in the region and to exploit the new nation’s vast oil reserves.  The British installed a Sunni-led monarchy, though Shiites, Kurds and other groups continued their rebellion against de facto Anglo rule.  This established a near century-old precedent of a nation held together by force.

For close to forty years the person wielding force and terror was Saddam Hussein.  Post-Saddam Iraq is inexorably splitting apart into warring factions.  Why not encourage the re-division of the country into autonomous regions resembling the Ottoman vilayets that many scholars say existed peacefully side by side for centuries?  

While it is difficult to imagine today, older Iraqis can recall a peaceful multiethnic Baghdad, once a jewel of the Middle East, in which Muslims, Christians, Kurds and Jews lived in harmony.  But the enemy of co-existence is economic instability.  Indeed, economics sparks much of the conflict between Shiite and Sunni Arabs and, of late, between Sunni Arabs and Kurds, over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

In post-Saddam Iraq, the Sunnis lost their privileged economic position, military power and political control and hold an abiding fear that they will be shut out of what they view as their fair share of Iraq’s wealth.  Not surprisingly, most of the insurrectionists are Sunnis.  Yet, most of the significant untapped oil reserves lie in western Iraq, which is majority Sunni.  If the U.S. holds an authentic commitment in helping to create greater stability in Iraq, and reducing tension in the region, then we must invest in and help develop the virgin oil fields in the Western Desert.  In al-Anbar province alone, an estimated million barrels or more of untapped oil per day is the key to supporting an autonomous Sunni Arab region and quieting Sunni anxiety and rebellion.

We have spent almost half a trillion dollars on a war that has only wreaked havoc on Iraqi and U.S. interests.  Why not make wiser use of our funds?

War and insurrection have taken their toll on all Iraqis, including Sunnis. There have been encouraging efforts by Sunni tribal leaders in al-Anbar to cooperate with our military in ousting Al Qaeda from the province.  A vision of economic stability and autonomy would provide a much needed sign of hope and additional impetus to work toward constructive goals.  The war over who will control the purse strings to Iraqi oil wealth will be eased when Sunnis see that the nation’s oil wealth will be divided up among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. 

Torched oil wells and blown pipelines are the result of the perception that the nation’s oil wealth is flowing into the hands of others.  Nothing is certain, but a viable plan for self rule in their own territory and evidence of future oil wealth might well be the “irresistible sweeteners” for the majority of Sunnis to give up their claim to control all of Iraq.

At the moment, extreme elements in the Sunni community view sectarian strife and civil war through the nihilistic perspective that it will somehow improve their position.  Al Qaeda and other Jihadists share a similar faith that their agenda is supported by a state of anarchy.

So far, U.S. policy has backed elections and futile attempts to quell violence. The recent elections, by establishing Shiite majority rule, only fueled Sunni-Shiite enmity and sectarian violence.  After more than eighty years of ill treatment by the Sunnis, it was naive to expect the Shiites to share power equally with the minority Sunnis.  The insurrection asserts a Sunni view that they will never accept minority status, which is their fate in a ‘unified’ Iraq.  Instead of bringing unity to Iraq, the newly-elected Baghdad government has had the opposite effect.

Future elections will yield the same results, with Shiites and Kurds winning enough votes to control the national parliament and the government.  The Sunnis are convinced they will be forever excluded from effective participation in the current government, and they are right!  Shiites and Kurds will never trust Sunnis and the Sunnis will always fear the other major groups in Iraq, who suffered under their rule.  This is why there can be a Bosnia-like Federation of Iraq, but never a cohesive Federal State of Iraq that includes the Sunni population. 

Three autonomous regions, be they democratic or authoritarian, would at least provide Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds with a strong incentive to succeed on their own terms rather than squander lives and resources with sectarian fighting.  The Kurds have long shown a desire to re-divide Iraq and have created a unity government in the north as well as having begun to independently export oil.  Clearly, major stumbling blocks exist: out-of-control militias, corruption and the stifling of political dissent, among others.  But Kurds view their newfound oil wealth as the key for Kurdish statehood.  Given a stake in their society, the same could one day be true for Sunnis.

Re-dividing Iraq isn’t a panacea.  But the Bush administration’s attempt to re-cobble Iraq together under Shiite rule has only been a recipe for continued bloodshed.  There is also the baseless prediction that re-dividing Iraq will lead to civil war, as if tens of thousands of Iraqis had never been killed in sectarian violence since the invasion.   Professor John G. Stoessinger, Ph.D. (Harvard), author of the classic work, Why Nations Go to War asserts division will work because the three regions coexisted peaceably for some 400 years as part of the Ottoman Empire.  The Ottoman rulers wisely did not try to impose strict control and the Sunni-Shiite dichotomy never became an issue because each group was only dominant in its respective region. 

A three-region solution still allows, indeed requires, U.S. and United Nations support.  Even after leaders are chosen and constitutions written, borders separating the regions along with Iraq’s external borders with Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria would have to be protected.  Maintaining order and border integrity could involve a long-term U.N. presence.  This support would include a U.S. position warning Turkey and Iran about the consequences of invading Kurdistan.

It is vital that all new entities in Iraq will be protected from their neighbors’ negative influence.  The Shiite state in the South will need protection from the Iranians and al-Sadr and his followers.  This also applies to the Sunni state, which will need protection from Arab extremists from the neighboring countries who will try to continue fighting the U.S and the U.N. in Iraq.   The Saudis see the al-Maliki government as a pawn of the Iranians.  Apparently, the Saudis are supporting the Sunni insurgents as surrogates in their battle with Iran over control in the region.  The autonomous region of Kurdistan is under the aforementioned threat of invasion from either Iran, or, more likely, Turkey.

The other key to creating greater stability in Iraq is for the U.S. to ensure that the lion’s share of Iraq’s oil wealth remains in the hands of Iraqis.  At present, there is the distinct perception that the eventual big winners in Iraq will be the Big Four, the American firms Exxon-Mobile and Chevron-Texaco, along with British BP-Amoco and Royal Dutch-Shell.  The Bush administration has influenced the creation of the new draft oil law for Iraq that favors the foreign oil cartels.  This plays into the hands of insurrectionists who assert that the U.S. is in Iraq to secure that nation’s resources for Big Oil.

Congress has already shown a growing support for a three region solution!  Senator Joe Biden has championed the idea since May 2006, and Republican Senators Sam Brownback and Gordon Smith have come onboard as enthusiastic supporters.  If additional, prominent anti-Iraq-war Republicans, such as Sen. Chuck Hagel and Rep. Ron Paul, reached out to Biden and his fellow Democrats and to the Iraqi people it would reinforce an enlightened course of action.  Currently, Senators Brownback and Smith are co-sponsoring a non-binding resolution by Senator Biden that urges decentralizing the Iraqi government.  Senator Barbara Boxer has joined as a co-sponsor on the Democratic side.  At this point, input from a cross section of Iraqi citizenry is critical.