Defcon Blue

President Bush’s policy goal in Iraq is a free, democratic and unified Iraq but these goals are incompatible and therefore impossible to achieve. The fundamental problem with our policies in Iraq is that they demonstrate a complete lack of understanding about nationalism, ethnic groups and nation states. Iraq is not a single nation and as such it can never be a single democratic state. Our policy in Iraq will fail because democracies are based on single nation-states. Iraq has two ethnic groups and two rival religious sects. They will never freely work together to form a single democracy. History demonstrates this clearly.

Since the rise of the nation-state in the mid 19th century, there have been only two forms of stable government: nation-state and dictatorship. Nation-states are states that are composed of a single ethnic group, e.g. Germans, French, Italians. Ethnic groups have a single common language, religion and culture. When people are free to choose their own form of government, they always choose to be in a single ethnic group state or a nation-state. (The United States is a rare exception in that our “ethnic group” is ideologically based: hard work, freedom from tyranny etc.)

The reason people choose to be in single ethnic group states is that they fear being repressed by “others”. When a state is composed of several ethnic groups, inevitably one group accumulates more power and the other group or groups feel repressed. The Russians dominated the Soviet Union, the Serbs dominated Yugoslavia, The Austrians and Hungarians dominated the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Sunnis dominated Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.  All of these states, once held together by dictatorship, split in to their component ethnic states once the dictatorship weakened or fell. The same will happen to Iraq.

Iraq is comprised of three distinct groups: the Arab Shiites, the Arab Sunnis and the Kurds. These three groups will not want to remain in a single democratic state where one group could dominate any minority. The Shiites were repressed under Saddam Hussein’s rule and they will do whatever they can to maintain a dominant position in the new Iraq. The Sunnis were cast from power by the United States and now resent being the minority. The Kurds fear being under either Arab group. The majority group, the Shiites might want to maintain Iraq but the minorities, the Sunnis and the Kurds will want self-determination, that is, to be in their own nation-state, free of Shiite oppression.

US policy ignores the dynamics of these multi-ethnic states. The United States current stated goal is to help “Iraq’s leaders build a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself” - Bush Dec 2, 2006. The problem with this goal is that it is not possible. We cannot build a democracy comprised of three distinct groups who will not want to stay together. Our only choices are: Establish a new dictatorship, ease the transition to three states or leave. The end result in Iraq will be either a Shiite dictatorship or a three state partition.

The United States should try to assist with a peaceful partition of Iraq. This would include advocating for a 3 state solution, providing security guarantees similar to those provided to Kuwait, including, possibly, the stationing of troops (the ultimate security guarantee) in any new state that wanted them there. If we are unwilling or unable to support a 3 state solution, then we should pull out of Iraq as soon as possible. We could do this by declaring victory or by facilitating our replacement with United Nations or Arab League peace-keeping troops. Our current policy is fatally flawed and if we do not readjust our goals to achievable ones, President Bush’s Iraq policy will fail.