Keep senators away from foreign policy
Somehow, I missed the story about the original resolution. But, hey, I'm not surprised to learn of it -- after all, it worked so well in Ireland, Palestine, Cyprus, and India.
But this time, it'll be different, right? Right?
But this time, it'll be different, right? Right?
6 Comments:
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Ted Frank said...
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- 6:05 PM
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David Schraub said...
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- 8:57 PM
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esquiver said...
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- 9:16 PM
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esquiver said...
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- 9:47 PM
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David Schraub said...
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- 3:05 PM
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esquiver said...
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- 3:44 PM
Post a CommentHere is the rollcall. We should thus keep Senator Clinton, Senator Biden, Senator Dodd, Senator Kerry, Senator Reid, and, indeed, all Democrats away from foreign policy, right?
Isn't it at least arguable that in at least all those places (I don't know anything about Cyprus, but the other three I can make an educated guess) not partitioning would have led to an even worse outcome? I hardly think that, say, a non-partitioned Palestine would have resulted in happiness and light for both/either Jews and Palestinians.
Partition plans are usually last-ditch resorts for already mucked up situations, so it's wrong to expect them to lead to utopia. Merely less awful is all we can really expect out of any Iraq plan nowadays, and partition may do that (or may not, I'm not sufficiently informed on its advisability in this particular case).
Ted:
All.
I am not as partisan as you think I am.
Anyway, it was your party what got us into this.
David:
I love having non-crazy commenters. Feel free to stick around.
If I wait until I'm less tired to respond to your comment, as you deserve, I probably won't. So:
- Even allowing that we're parsing circles of hell, you're going to have to make more of an effort to convince me that, in particular, India would have fared worse unpartitioned.
- Unmentioned: partition plans are usually drawn up and imposed, though generally not maintained, by parties other than the territory being partitioned. Lines on a map that seem reasonable in Washington (or London or...) are going to stand a very tiny chance of being so self-evident on the ground. Beyond the immediate casualties of partition's aftermath, there is the lingering, and I think often insoluble (e.g., Kashmir) crisis caused by the artificiality of the borders themselves. It'd also put paid to any last remaining credibility we had among Iraqis of not being a colonial power, but since that's pretty much squandered already, I'm not featuring that argument more prominently. I do believe, however, that our altering the political landscape so dramatically would serve as a useful point of terrorist rhetoric long beyond the last casualties of just about any other solution we could imagine.
- Partition in Iraq is a glib, wishful-thinking solution, much like declaring an invisible "no smoking" boundary in a tiny diner. (Horrible metaphor; so very tired.) Have you seen a map of how the population breaks down? At least in Baghdad itself, it isn't terribly self-segregated; there'd be massive relocation (and, probably, wholesale slaughter of anyone who tried to opt out...and then, of course, the revenge killings..). We aren't actually at last-ditch just yet: replacing the private contractors and much of the US leadership roles with a UN-led effort (still fortified in the largest part by US military) while putting the highest priority on training Iraqi leaders still bears, I think, a much higher chance of avoiding a regional black hole than does massive social engineering.
I like non-crazy commenters too -- most of the folks on my blog are reasonably intelligent, but I have enough experience with the nuts to appreciate a dose of sanity.
Not to get debate-y, but your points, while well-taken, also don't seem to be unique problems compared to the status quo. Sure, the partition borders will be externally imposed and thus have a colonial taint. But that's true of the current borders, which is half the reason we have a problem in the first place. At least there is historical precedent behind Iraq being three separately governed provinces (Mosul, Baghdad, and Basra). Ditto with mass relocation and slaughter -- I don't see an outcome that doesn't include both, indeed, one could argue that both are happening as we speak anyway.
The biggest strike against partitions is that it seems to guarantee the states will inevitably find themselves in an intractable border war against their neighbors over some swath of land they both claim. But all this replaces is a perpetual civil war among these same groups who mistrust and want to kill each other and seize power anyway. At the very least, I think we're marginally better at deterring inter-state versus intra-state conflicts (the tools of diplomacy being more finely developed in the former), so even conceding the problem, its a problem we are more likely to be able to contain.
If you genuinely believe the UN will send in a fully-functional PKO to Iraq, and that it'd be effective (both rather tenuous claims, given the history of the UN and the blue helmets' less-than-stellar record intervening to stop mass ethnic violence), then perhaps we aren't at the last-ditch stage yet, but I fear I don't share your optimism in this respect.
David,
I'm not scared of debate-y boys. :-)
I think that people who say Iraq is currently as bad as it could get seriously lack imagination.
Where are we succeeding with inter-state diplomacy? I'm not being belligerent; I'm just not having examples pop into mind. There's only one Christopher Hill, and, regrettably, he doesn't do the Middle East.
Proceeding on the points on which we differ in intuitions and optimism is a bit like trying to duel with water balloons, so never mind those ones, but do clarify where you see the border disagreements: among the partitions, or regionally? Newly-independent provinces that are war-torn and somewhat weak arguing over a swath of land is one thing, but what happens when a newly homogeneous Shia 65 percent of Iraq opts for annexation by Iran?
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