Divided Iraq Would Be a Triple Threat

Iraqis tend to disagree about a lot of things, ranging from politics to literature to the best way of cooking the fish delicacy masguf. On one matter, however, they almost invariably present a united front: Iraq is one country, and they are Iraqis first and Sunnis or Shiites second. These days even Kurds find it politic to stress an Iraqi identity, and they are working hard to ensure that they will have a meaningful role in the new Iraq.

Such nationalist unanimity inside Iraq stands in sharp contrast to the views of many outsiders, who point to the country's history as evidence that it cannot work as a state. The reasons include: the fact that it was created a mere 80 years ago, when British colonial administrators combined three provinces of the Ottoman empire to create the country; the marked discrimination suffered over the years by the Shiites inhabiting the south; and the militant separatism exhibited by the Kurds at regular intervals.

Amid the mounting woes of the U.S. occupation effort, recommendations have begun floating out from U.S. foreign policy mandarins to split Iraq into three pieces -- Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish statelets -- a proposal that would permit American forces to withdraw from the inhospitable Sunni triangle to the friendly Kurdish north and the Shiite south, where the oil is.

"This is ridiculous," fumed Zuheir Hammadi, in a typical Iraqi response to such suggestions. Although he comes from a prominent Shiite family in the southern city of Nasiriyah, he said, "my wife is Sunni, my sister is married to a Sunni, my brother is married to a Sunni. Baghdad is half Shiite, half Sunni -- what do they propose? Cut the city in half? Ethnic cleansing, like Yugoslavia?"

Though the notion that Iraq is an "artificial" state may be convincing to detached observers, it does not stand up to serious examination. Most states are to some degree artificial, having been created by human design rather than some mysterious process of Mother Nature. The 1707 Act of Union that joined England and Scotland has provided one enduring example, as, of course, did the gentlemen who assembled in Philadelphia in 1787.

Iraq's multiethnicity is hardly unique. Neighboring Iran, for example, is a potpourri of Persians (who make up barely half the population), Azeris, Kurds, Baluchis and other minorities. Nor should too much be made of the "three separate Ottoman provinces" argument, given that from at least the 17th century, power over the whole territory has resided in Baghdad.