[syriacus]

That is why we conservatives are so concerned about the current immigration policy/philosophy. They seem to us to be a road map to Balkanization.

Congratulations!! You've just provided the answer to the diversity problem in Iraq!! Put good policies into place.

You know, as a student of American history, that heterogeneity does not, of itself, lead to Balkanization. You yourself said policy can make a difference.

The outcome, (whether Balkanization takes place or not) depends on how the heterogeneity is handled.

BTW, I've got to think a little more about the competing notions that

• On the one hand the Iraqis are, as a group, totally unable to grasp the advantages of self-government
  but on the other hand
• the Iraqis are as a group too heterogenous to form a government.

Maybe you can help...Are the Iraqis too alike in their thinking, or too different in their thinking?

[iconoclast]

You know, as a student of American history, that heterogeneity does not, of itself, lead to Balkanization.

Unfortunately, Iraq was Balkanized on the day it was invented by the Brits (you remember them, the last significantly hubristic nation).

[iconoclast]

Maybe you can help...Are the Iraqis too alike in their thinking, or too different in their thinking?

Here's the limit on my "help" in this debacle.

If we had been serious in efforts to establish anything but a puppet state, we would have chosen to help establish a Republic (Not so different from our own blueprint).