Saturday, January 06, 2007

A New Way Forward for Iraq

Former Iraqi defence minister Ali Allawi made some recommendations for the way forward for Iraq in Friday’s Independent. One of them matches up with my humble opinion for a peaceful way forwards. In my humble opinion, the only way out of the current mess is for three separate states to be created from Iraq. I was thinking of separate countries but Ali Allawi’s idea of three states in one country held together by a federal base (kind of like the USA) makes better sense I think. The three states would be (1) Kurdish (2) Sunni (3) Shia.

Trying to create a united country out of what has never been one is ridiculous. Iraq as we know it was only created out of the greed and ignorance of the various conquerors it has had for the pas 100 years or so, so surely it makes the best sense to put them in the groups that already exist but fight each other because one group often has control over the others. As long as the federal head is set up correctly and sensitively and as long as the individual states are as autonomous as possible I see this as the only viable option. I hope the powers that be examine Allawi’s proposal and give it serious consideration.

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