Iraq partition 'unacceptable' to US

[sabra]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20766957-1702,00.html

Iraq partition 'unacceptable' to US

PARTITION of Iraq along sectarian lines is "wholly unacceptable" to the United States, a senior State Department official said overnight, warning of the high cost in human suffering.

"Partition in Iraq could only be achieved at an expense of human suffering and bloodshed and forced dislocation that would be both profound and wholly unacceptable, I believe, to the American people," said Ambassador David Satterfield, the State Department's coordinator of Iraq policy.

"It is wholly unacceptable to this administration," he told a Senate hearing after being asked about partition as an option for stabilising Iraq.

[ixion]

1. uh, as opposed to the carnage and bloodshed currently going on?

:crazy:

[mike_c]

2. America is not going to have much say about what happens in Iraq...

...unless it's to keep the meat grinder going.

[Deep13]

3. The Iraqis are not asking for our permission.

Dumbass.

[Virginia Dare]

4. Another line in the sand?....n/t

[acmavm]

5. Everything that's happened was 'unacceptable to the US' at

one time or another. The civil war, a Shi'ite theocracy, trying to deal with al Sadr and the other militia heads, whatever.

'Unacceptable' to the US is encouragement to the Iraqis to do just whatever it is that's so 'unacceptble'.

[no_hypocrisy]

6. Isn't that position a little like England telling the South it coudn't

secede from the North in the 19th Century?

[denverbill]

7. Once again, their democracy is trumped by our veto.

I'm sure Iraqis feel real 'empowered' about now.

[Moloch]

8. They're absolutely wrong....

Partition is the ONLY way to bring about peace there. Iraq was just a legacy of colonialism... it was NEVER a peaceful country on its own. During the days of the Ottoman Empire, what is now Iraq was three provinces: Mosul, Baghdad and Basra. In that time, there was peace for hundreds of years.

[nealmhughes]

17. It does appear that a larger framework has done wonders for conquered areas.

Witness the Slavs under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, no bloodshed in the Austrian/Hungarian parts nor under Tito. It came apart when Vienna was made moot.

Ottoman Turkey may have had a lot of problems, but it was a safe, secure country for all Christians, Jews and Muslims for a long time. Once again, things fell apart under the Young Turks with their anti-Armenian policies, which were actually a larger part of Turkification Project and Russian interference into the Caucus Mts.

Ottoman Turkey may have been the "Sick Man" for a long while, but in the East, it did at least make some "progress" in stopping the ethnic/religious rivalry within Mesopotamia. Of course, the anti-Arab bent of the Ottomans was no great thing nor their millet system which institutionalized their cultural differences, but overall, it worked. People went to work and school and to the market without fear of being murdered.

Is the price of stability won at the price of non-autonomy? Other multi-cultural states have flourished, such as Germany and Switzerland. Why? Because they are busy and have their own local tribal shindigs to enjoy without any gunfire from "the others" to interupt them.

[ProfessorGAC]

9. Well, That's Perfectly Understandable

If they partition, that means we will have three different groups of corrupt puppets to bribe. Think of the logistics of having to hide that many bribes.
The Professor

Edited for typo.

[rodeodance]

10. "wholly unacceptable"---all options were suspose to be on the table.

[Jacobin]

11. Oddly, its in Iraq's constitution to have a phased partition

What we want is meaningless anyway

[GeorgeGist]

12. Dear Ambassador Clueless...

it's not our country.

[Igel]

13. It's the State Department.

They confuse unattainable perfection with realistic goals, just as they confuse words with acts and stated intentions with real intentions.

The original word processors--they only serve to process words, reducing them to the verbal analog of processed cheese, Velveeta. And a prototype for the yet-future thought shredder.

[NOLADEM]

14. A federation with a central Oil Ministry is the BEST we can hope for at this time.

The most likely to me is a complete break down into the Kurdish north, Sunni west and Shiite South and East, with lip service paid to an Iraqi nation for the sake of shared oil revenues.

What's next? Are we gonna try and tell the sun when to go up and down?

[endarkenment]

15. Why is this any of our business?

Are we to kill Iraqis for the next 50 years in order that our vision of their future will be accepted by them?

Ambassador David Satterfield is simply a lying war criminal who would like you to ignore that the current expense of human suffering and bloodshed and forced dislocation that is both profound and wholly unacceptable.

[StraightDope]

16. Well, there's a BIG surprise...

Bush and friends not taking the reommended course of action, and instead fostering more suffering.

Whoda thunk it?