The argument to partition Iraq

[ali_ababa]

Reasonable in a perfect world where one is free to draw new lines on maps without care for the people or the politics on the ground.

Sorry this is more of Ralph Peter's semi-polyannish behavior played out; what looks like a deft solution is only more crap sown on the same old fields. The Brits were quite good at drawing maps, followed closely by the other colonial powers. You might as well refer to this map as "Peter's Hiccup" as the 90 degree bend in Jordan's current border is referred to as "Winston's Hiccup."

The US Sec Def had to apologize to the Turks because Peters pulled this map out at a US govenrnment sponsored speaking engagement at the NATO defense college since Peters was essentially saying that the Yurks should give into the PKK.

Best
Tom

The British and French after WW1 simply got 'mandates' over the middle east after the ottoman empire was defeated and drew the borders as they wished.
When the borders were drawn no thought went into the people living within the regions. Iraq was drawn up to include the three main oil producing areas which were Mosul, Baghdad and Basra. Also Kuwait was not included in the Basra province as it was before since the British had signed a contract for protection with the ruling Al-Sabah family in 1899.

I remember reading in a book about the creation of Jordan and a quote Winston Churchill said - it went something like this: 'I came up with Jordan in one afternoon'.

If the people were taken into account then the Kurdish people would have been given a state instead of being the largest group of stateless people in the world suffering prejudice from Syria, Iran and Turkey (Also Iraq during previous governments).

This map i believe would stop all fighting as every person would be within their own sect meaning there are no excuses to cause trouble. However the ethnic minorities is a problem which would be more difficult to deal with.

If the map did go through as proposed the largest oil producing countries would be the Arab Shia State and Kurdistan - the two most opressed groups with their countries.

Regards.