Poland in Iraq? A Radical Suggestion for Persian Gulf Stability
[Read more of the essay, and our argument based on history, at some future date when published, either in SG or a Paper Series.]
Now here is a radical idea for solving the US, and also the EU, East Asia, problem in Iraq, one not far enough explored. Five years of failed political grand strategy and ineffective military policy have produced for the Bush Administration an almost unsolvable problem in and surrounding Iraq. The solution relies a sense of history, a better-informed opinion on the use of diplomacy, and a political bargain recalling the “balance of power” before Woodrow Wilson and American “liberal internationalism” (and its neoconservative perversion). The solution and its explanation may be seen as an amateur attempt at analysis, or an arrogant assertion that regular people may not be always fooled by the political masters, the partisan spinners and “ideo-bologgers”. This solution and the argument for it, The Cepia Club feels, is at least plausible enough not to be discounted entirely.
Our solution involves the breakup of Iraq and an end to its sovereignty, similar to Poland’s partition in the late 1700s, and again in 1815, between Russia, Austria and Prussia. We argue that the current war in Iraq, and the larger problems of war and peace in the Persian Gulf, may be satisfactorily resolved by partition and giving the Shi’a to Iran, a fully-united Greater Kurdistan within a federated and co-equal republic to Turkey, and the Sunni population to Saudi Arabia, with a minor land enlargement for Syria from Iraq. The partition depends on a mix of incentives for and concessions from all countries concerned (Iran’s nuclear program?), including Jordan, Israel and Syria. It can only work with an exchange of minor trades of territories and assumptions of sovereignty and promises of investment.. And it absolutely must include definitions and guarantees for rights, access, and management off shared resources, primarily oil and water.
This type of “realist” balance of power diplomacy can only happen in a direct and invite-only “Congress-type” peace conference, like after the Napoleonic Wars, of the countries dividing Iraq in the partition. The US, EU, Russia, China, and Japan should be primary coordinators, and the “Quintet” of powers jointly enforcing the security the new order. In this rather complex “dirty” diplomacy, partition violates the spirit of the UN, and therefore the United Nations should not be involved. The arrangement must at all costs must establish and preserve the balance of power in the region.
This Congress-type of “realist” diplomacy must be followed by a wider–Indian Ocean Area security and cooperation type of a “Concert-type” process, the series of diplomatic conferences after the 1815 Congress of Vienna which maintained and corrected the European balance of balance of power and interests rather successfully until 1906. It might be that only such a tough, disgusting, tortuous betrayal of the “stubborn principles” of liberal internationalism that the US might find a satisfactory end to its counter guerilla-terrorist war in and indefinite occupation of Iraq.
Examining the current war, critical political problems, the history of Iraq, the nature of ending long, bitter unsuccessful wars, insights from European diplomatic history, The Cepia Club’s rational premise for this proposed solution, the advantages AND the risks, become less murky. But time runs out. A solution to US and Iraqi dilemma has little time to begin, before the problem goes too far to retrieve, for the US, Iraq, and the entire world.
Now here is a radical idea for solving the US, and also the EU, East Asia, problem in Iraq, one not far enough explored. Five years of failed political grand strategy and ineffective military policy have produced for the Bush Administration an almost unsolvable problem in and surrounding Iraq. The solution relies a sense of history, a better-informed opinion on the use of diplomacy, and a political bargain recalling the “balance of power” before Woodrow Wilson and American “liberal internationalism” (and its neoconservative perversion). The solution and its explanation may be seen as an amateur attempt at analysis, or an arrogant assertion that regular people may not be always fooled by the political masters, the partisan spinners and “ideo-bologgers”. This solution and the argument for it, The Cepia Club feels, is at least plausible enough not to be discounted entirely.
Our solution involves the breakup of Iraq and an end to its sovereignty, similar to Poland’s partition in the late 1700s, and again in 1815, between Russia, Austria and Prussia. We argue that the current war in Iraq, and the larger problems of war and peace in the Persian Gulf, may be satisfactorily resolved by partition and giving the Shi’a to Iran, a fully-united Greater Kurdistan within a federated and co-equal republic to Turkey, and the Sunni population to Saudi Arabia, with a minor land enlargement for Syria from Iraq. The partition depends on a mix of incentives for and concessions from all countries concerned (Iran’s nuclear program?), including Jordan, Israel and Syria. It can only work with an exchange of minor trades of territories and assumptions of sovereignty and promises of investment.. And it absolutely must include definitions and guarantees for rights, access, and management off shared resources, primarily oil and water.
This type of “realist” balance of power diplomacy can only happen in a direct and invite-only “Congress-type” peace conference, like after the Napoleonic Wars, of the countries dividing Iraq in the partition. The US, EU, Russia, China, and Japan should be primary coordinators, and the “Quintet” of powers jointly enforcing the security the new order. In this rather complex “dirty” diplomacy, partition violates the spirit of the UN, and therefore the United Nations should not be involved. The arrangement must at all costs must establish and preserve the balance of power in the region.
This Congress-type of “realist” diplomacy must be followed by a wider–Indian Ocean Area security and cooperation type of a “Concert-type” process, the series of diplomatic conferences after the 1815 Congress of Vienna which maintained and corrected the European balance of balance of power and interests rather successfully until 1906. It might be that only such a tough, disgusting, tortuous betrayal of the “stubborn principles” of liberal internationalism that the US might find a satisfactory end to its counter guerilla-terrorist war in and indefinite occupation of Iraq.
Examining the current war, critical political problems, the history of Iraq, the nature of ending long, bitter unsuccessful wars, insights from European diplomatic history, The Cepia Club’s rational premise for this proposed solution, the advantages AND the risks, become less murky. But time runs out. A solution to US and Iraqi dilemma has little time to begin, before the problem goes too far to retrieve, for the US, Iraq, and the entire world.
Powered by ScribeFire.
posted by Scipio Cepicanus @ 10:54 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home