You're kidding, right?
Posted on 08/11/2006 1:35:51 PM PDT by genefromjersey
I could use some help in figuring out how individuals,corporations,etc. might financially exploit Joe Biden's (and another questionable group's) plan to divide Iraq into 3 balkanized countries with one EU-like capitol in Baghdad, and "an equitable share of the oil revenues".
I scent a big-ass weasel in the woodpile !
Who would gain-financially-from such a division,and how ?
I'd appreciate any (non-political)ideas you might suggest.(I already dislike Biden,so I don't need schooling in that !)
I will think about it some more, but the obvious political play would be to claim that Bush caused civil war
Seems like a good idea to me, anything that stops these nuts from killing each other.
Find out where the oil fields are? Follow the money trail.
Think of East and West Germany and Czechoslovakia.
Flag makers. Three times as much business.
SD
According to this guy, one other thing that makes this such a goofy idea is that most of Iraq's population is largely secular -- which means there has been so much intermarriage between these various sects that a large portion of the population doesn't even fit into a single category. If someone has a Sunni father and a Shi'ite mother, then where does he live?
The very notion that such an arrangement would include "an equitable share of the oil revenues" makes it inevitable that it would never function as a viable group of nation-states, since the only way to guarantee this kind of "equitable share" would be to put these three states under the authority of some kind of outside governing body.
In other words, this arrangement would be a "New World Order" globalist's dream.
This was kicked around a lot during and after the Iraq war. But I think it was rejected for a couple of reasons, including,
I s'pect -- This is more about Joe hearing Joe talk...
...and Joe watching Joe appear in the media to blather and bloviate
Joe is a maverick-McCain wanna-be.
He drop-kicks these par-boiled, half-inflated, self-aggrandizing my-thought-ologies in the general direction of the cut-&-run goal line to see if they will fly...
This is much less about Biden as a visionary....
...Or Biden as a well-connected politician with cronies ripe for profits in this balkanization...
It is all about Joe getting his own face time & photo-op...
In order to assuage his grand ambitions for '08...
IMHO
Three new, tiny countries that hate each others guts, hate some neighbors with equal ferocity and the US, at least to some extent.
Who would profit? Well, the arms merchants, for one. The folks who buy and sell governments to get to thier natural resources for another.
Third - I dunno, maybe as suggested, flag makers, folks who sell printing presses for new money, airlines as the current residents flee for thier lives.....
Don't forget the UN will also gain two additional turd-world votes against the US.
I think Joe Biden's scalp and hair plugs should be divided into three vulcanized areas in order to let some air to his brain.
What's wrong with dividing Iraq? It was the solution we used in Germany (in to an East and West plus a separate Austria), Korea (into North and South), India (into India and Pakistan (and Pakistan into Pakistan and Bangladesh)), the Soviet Union (into Russian and the CIS), Yugoslavia (into the Balkan states) among others. If partition was a good enough solution for all those states, why not Iraq?
You're kidding, right?
Dividing Iraq doesn't force the various factions to work together. It only sets the stage for Balkan-like instability.
Once the militant factions are brought under control and they are forced to submit to elections and civil authorities, the situation in Iraq will improve. It might take them a generation or two, but the region will be better off for it.
As for Biden's idea about what to do with the oil, try and imagine what could possibly go wrong with the Oil for Food program, and then triple it.
What is it about Iraq that would make that true that was/is not true about India/Pakistan, Austria/Germany, N/S. Korea, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, or even Israel? Would Israel be better off if it were to be absorbed into a greater Palestine under Arab control so the various factions could "work together"?
. . . as the population of the Balkans was, for the most part . . .
Posting a map of Bosnia doesn't accurately reflect the ethnic composition of the Balkans by geographic area.
I could easily make the case that whites comprised only 47% of the U.S. population if I used only demographic information from California as evidence.
You can pump more oil in a monolithical region with a well-defined border, than in a hodgepodge of sectarian enclaves where nothing is safe anywhere.
I am not sure it is a bad idea.
However, I don't think we have or should spend the resources to make Iraq be a unified country if they choose not to be unified.
Slovenia and Croatia are both fairly functional independent countries from the old Yugoslavia, f'rinstance.
The loony Sunnis could be swapped to Syria in return for the much smaller Kurdish areas. The sane Sunnis could join Kurdistan, Kuwait or Shittestan.
Kurdistan could be turned over to Turkey as a pro-western protectorate for a given number of years. There is no reason Turkey could not woo them to stay given that Kurds have held important leadership positions in the Turkish government.
The Shiites would be left with three choices:
If you check any historical maps of the world, you will see Persia (Iran) has been basically within the present day boundries for the last 1500 years or so. Iraqi Shiites are mainly Arab-- they have little affection for the Persians.
While I am not saying the above is the best or even an ideal solution, it is a Plan-B which is preferable to civil war. Iraq can be given the choice.
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