Informed Comment
Informed Comment: "
Guerrillas at Mosul detonated a car bomb as an Iraqi national guard unit from Kirkuk went by, injuring seven of them.
Guerrillas at largely Turkmen Tel Afar also clashed with US troops.
The US arrested 4 Sunni clerics from the Association of Muslim Scholars.
Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reports that a Communist representative in the 100-member National Council in Iraq, which serves as a sort of interim parliament, was assassinated while traveling in the north near Kirkuk on Saturday. This would be like a senator being assassinated in the United States.
posted by Juan @ 11/14/2004 06:30:42 AM
Regionalist Model for Iraq
Fred Kaplan at Slate discusses the proposal of former Iraqi national security adviser Muwaffaq al-Rubaie for consolidating the 18 Iraqi provinces into 5-- one Kurdish, two Sunni Arab, and two Shiite.
As Kaplan notes, I myself dislike this idea. It has the advantage of possibly mollifying the Kurds, who really want a 'Kurdistan.' But it has many disadvantages. First of all, 'Kurdistan' will either include Turkmen and Christian areas, and the city of Kirkuk, or it will not. If it does, that will cause a lot of trouble with the Turkmen and Christians (both of whom generally fear and despise the Kurds). If it doesn't, that could cause trouble from the Kurdish side. Better to leave the provinces like they are.
Another consideration is that multi-ethnic countries with just a few, largely ethnic, provinces, are at greater risk for civil war and breaking up than are countries that have large numbers of mixed-ethnic provinces. Creating Rubaie's 5 provinces now may contain the seeds of Iraqi civil war and partition in the future.
Examples of such instability include the original Pakistan, which included 5 provinces (Baluchistan, Sindh, NWFP, Pujab and East Bengal), and which broke up in 1971, with East Bengal peeling off to form Bangladesh. Or look at Nigeria and Biafra. Or Yugoslavia.
Eighteen multi-ethnic provinces would be more stable in the long"
Guerrillas at Mosul detonated a car bomb as an Iraqi national guard unit from Kirkuk went by, injuring seven of them.
Guerrillas at largely Turkmen Tel Afar also clashed with US troops.
The US arrested 4 Sunni clerics from the Association of Muslim Scholars.
Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reports that a Communist representative in the 100-member National Council in Iraq, which serves as a sort of interim parliament, was assassinated while traveling in the north near Kirkuk on Saturday. This would be like a senator being assassinated in the United States.
posted by Juan @ 11/14/2004 06:30:42 AM
Regionalist Model for Iraq
Fred Kaplan at Slate discusses the proposal of former Iraqi national security adviser Muwaffaq al-Rubaie for consolidating the 18 Iraqi provinces into 5-- one Kurdish, two Sunni Arab, and two Shiite.
As Kaplan notes, I myself dislike this idea. It has the advantage of possibly mollifying the Kurds, who really want a 'Kurdistan.' But it has many disadvantages. First of all, 'Kurdistan' will either include Turkmen and Christian areas, and the city of Kirkuk, or it will not. If it does, that will cause a lot of trouble with the Turkmen and Christians (both of whom generally fear and despise the Kurds). If it doesn't, that could cause trouble from the Kurdish side. Better to leave the provinces like they are.
Another consideration is that multi-ethnic countries with just a few, largely ethnic, provinces, are at greater risk for civil war and breaking up than are countries that have large numbers of mixed-ethnic provinces. Creating Rubaie's 5 provinces now may contain the seeds of Iraqi civil war and partition in the future.
Examples of such instability include the original Pakistan, which included 5 provinces (Baluchistan, Sindh, NWFP, Pujab and East Bengal), and which broke up in 1971, with East Bengal peeling off to form Bangladesh. Or look at Nigeria and Biafra. Or Yugoslavia.
Eighteen multi-ethnic provinces would be more stable in the long"
