Point/CounterpointDebate newsworthy and other 'hot-button' topics here. If it can be debated, this is the forum for it. Can't be thin skinned - people will disagree with you. No flaming or personal attacks.
July 10, 2003 -- PRESIDENT Bush consistently has done the right thing by ignoring the nay- sayers before, during and after Operation Iraqi Freedom. Yet he's in danger of making the same mistake his father did at the end of Desert Storm - doing only half the job. Just as the failure to press on to Baghdad in 1991 left Iraq and the entire region with cancerous problems, today's failure to recognize the artificial, unjust nature of the Iraqi state promises enduring discontent.
Will American troops need to return to Iraq a third time, in another decade?
Speaking of Iraq as a single, integrated country is a form of lying. Its borders were drawn by grasping European diplomats almost a century ago, with no regard for the wishes - or rivalries - of the local populations.
Today, the Iraq we're trying to herd back together consists of three distinct nations caged under a single, bloodstained flag. Our problems are with only one of those nations, the Sunni Arab minority west and north of Baghdad.
Favored by the British, the Sunni Arabs took power at Iraq's formation and maintained it through massacre, torture and imprisonment. Saddam Hussein was the ultimate expression of Sunni Arab tyranny over Iraq's Kurds and Shi'ites.
By holding Iraq together with U.S. troops, we merely encourage the Sunni Arabs - who remain hostile to our presence, whose extremists attack our soldiers and who still intend to recapture control of the entire country.
We are punishing our friends, rewarding our enemies and alienating the neutral. President Bush needs to perform radical surgery on Iraq now, while the world remains in a funk over our success. We still have a window through which we can thrust major reforms. But the window is closing. Defending the status quo is deadly folly.
The break-up of Iraq should proceed in two stages.
First, we should provisionally divide the country into a federation of three states, giving the Sunni Arabs one last chance to embrace reform.
* One state would encompass the Shi'ite region in the south, encompassing all of the southern oil fields.
* The second would be an expanded Kurdistan, including historically Kurdish Kirkuk and Mosul, as well as Iraq's northern oil fields.
* The third would be a rump Sunni Arab state sandwiched between the other two.
* Baghdad would become an autonomous district.
Stop worrying about Shi'ite extremism. If we mean what we say about democracy, the Shi'ites should be free to choose whomever they want as their leaders - even fundamentalists. Although the odds of theocratic rule emerging or enduring in southern Iraq are lower than the media imply, the Shi'ites, who long have been oppressed and persecuted, should be free to determine their own future.
Democracy means letting people make their own mistakes. We've made a few ourselves. The only thing upon which we should insist is strict supervision to ensure an honest vote.
We must, however, make it clear to Iran that meddling will not be tolerated.
As this column consistently points out, the Kurds deserve freedom and a state of their own. After the Jews and Armenians, they have been the most persecuted ethnic group of the last hundred years, always denied an independent homeland, shot, gassed, driven from their homes - and even victimized for the use of their native dialects. The world's willingness to look away from the long tragedy of the Kurdish people is inexcusable.
And consider how strategically helpful a Kurdish state, reliant on U.S. military guarantees, might be. If the Kurdish people agreed to host our forces, we could abandon our bases in Turkey, the use of which has been restricted almost to worthlessness. New airbases amid a welcoming population would be quite a change in the region. Even the Saudis and the Gulf Arabs would be on notice.
And what about Turkey? Our "long-time ally"?
I have no personal grudge against Turkey. On the contrary, I've visited the country many times and even took my wife there on our honeymoon. Istanbul remains one of my favorite cities. I've argued for years that Turkey was a vital ally.
But times change. Turkish treachery on the eve of our recent war cannot be overlooked.
Startled by the swiftness of our victory, the Turks immediately assured us that it was all a minor misunderstanding, that Turkey wished to remain the best of friends. Yet Turkey is again becoming the "sick man of Europe," plagued by ineradicable corruption, growing Islamic radicalism and a self-destructive military.
The result of our renewed friendship? Last week, U.S. forces had to break up a secret Turkish military operation in northern Iraq, arresting a dozen of Ankara's special operations troops. The Turkish mission? To assassinate the senior Kurdish leader in Kirkuk. His crime? Cooperating with the Americans.
The Turkish chief of staff, Gen. Ozkok, threw a public tantrum, insisting that we had created a grave crisis by busting his assassins. Sorry, pal. You created the crisis. And you just blew any chance you and your government had of rebuilding bridges to Washington that will bear any real weight.
The Turkish military's scheme to undercut our occupation underscores the need for the Bush administration to stop thinking small when it comes to nation-building. Instead of just changing the oil in the old jalopy, it's time for a fleet of new cars. An independent Kurdistan should roll off the assembly line first.
The second stage of the division of Iraq would kick in if the Sunni Arabs still refuse to cooperate: We would declare the interim Iraqi Federation dissolved, creating three fully independent states in its place, with the Kurdish and Shi'ite states meeting along the Iranian border to guarantee the Kurds a corridor to the sea for their oil, gas and trade.
Then leave the Sunni Arabs to rot.
Oh, and there just might be a third step down the road, too. We should not miss any opportunity to support the longing for freedom of the tens of millions of Kurds held hostage behind European-imposed borders in Turkey, Syria and Iran. For Americans serious about human rights and freedom, Greater Kurdistan must be a long-range goal.
Military operations alone cannot change the Middle East. The European legacy of phony borders must be demolished, starting in Iraq. Don't betray our troops again by leaving the job unfinished to please our enemies.
Ralph Peters is a retired Army officer and the author of "Beyond Terror: Strategy in a Changing World."
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Interesting idea, but the thought that immediately springs to mind is that imposing new borders in Iraq will mean many people having to leave their homes and businesses to relocate, and nationalists rejecting the imposition. This writer doesn't seem too worried about threading on toes, an attitude which is clearly, or so it seems to me, contributing to the current mess.
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"Decent people shouldn't live here. They'd be happier somewhere else."
Interesting idea, but the thought that immediately springs to mind is that imposing new borders in Iraq will mean many people having to leave their homes and businesses to relocate, and nationalists rejecting the imposition. This writer doesn't seem too worried about threading on toes, an attitude which is clearly, or so it seems to me, contributing to the current mess.
No, no one would have to leave their homes, they would just fall under a different sphere of authority. Of course, the Turks would not like a Kurdistan, and we would essentially bring whatever friendship we have with them to an end and it would mean another tense spot along the Kurdistan/Turkey border. (Maybe tense is an understatement)
But the rest of Iraq, after being carved up, would possibly be able to co-exist together, although the feasibility of this plan avoiding outright civil war is hard to say.
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Point/Counterpoint
04-15-2004, 21:25
What we *should* have done in Iraq! 
