Outstanding post, Ski.
If a Kurd in the North or Shi'ite in the South gets at the head of a mass movement to create their own country as a response to the chaos there, what should be our response? What we call a failed state needing democracy to become healed, he might call an illegitimate artificial state imposed on them after the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire by British imperialists. It never had any legitimacy and was only maintained by Saddam's Sunni dominated dictatorship.
If he is really clever he would write a document that echoed our own Declaration of Independence. It would take some nerve to try to tell them they couldn't do it. I can just see him selectively quoting our Founding Fathers in response to justify their bid for independence.
Unlikely as it seems, a George Washington might emerge to unify the country. He'll have no credibility if we appoint him, or arrange for his selection, that's for sure.
Or they just might really need to go their separate ways. If so, I do not see what moral authority we would have to deny them that course. We are just going to have to get used to the idea that the waxing of states has ended and the waning of states is in motion. Sending a bunch of troops around the world to prop up disintegrating unions is just a losing proposition, whether they are sitting on petroleum or not.
I have no idea what the future holds, but it just seems like we are hoping to preserve an old order in the Middle East and elsewhere, that is disappearing due to forces beyond our control. Better to stand aside, set the best example we can as a nation, and deal with whoever is sitting across the poker table from us than try to engineer who the new poker players will be. It just isn't our bailiwick.
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