[butternut_squash_bisque]

Dumb Question: how's that going to help the situation? Won't the 3 new 'provinces/countries/nations' just keep fighting each other? They hate each other's guts, so what's to prevent them from continuing the war? And the Shit-ites are the ones aligned with Iran and Syria in terrorism, aren't they? Won't they keep attacking the other two?

Okay, so that was more than *one dumb question*...

[US Navy guy]

The Shiites and sunnis have HATED each other for Mellenia. So NOTHING we can do will change that. Split them up and at least we can get oil from the north (Kirrkuk) which is where the Kurds are.

[Zhang Fei]

Dumb Question: how's that going to help the situation? Won't the 3 new 'provinces/countries/nations' just keep fighting each other? They hate each other's guts, so what's to prevent them from continuing the war? And the Shit-ites are the ones aligned with Iran and Syria in terrorism, aren't they? Won't they keep attacking the other two?

The Kurds don't want all of Iraq. They're like Slovenia. The Shiites may want all of Iraq, but they have to go through Sunni Iraq in the center to get to Kurdistan. Sunni Iraq is too busy trying to prevent the Shiites from overrunning them to fight the Kurds. Bottom line is that once we get a few states running and start doing the kinds of population transfers we did at the end of WWII, things will settle down. Defending borders is easier than doing garrison work. The states of the former Yugoslavia aren't really doing much fighting, are they?

[CyberAnt]

I have the same concerns.

But .. I look at the Kurds, and they are prosperous and looking toward the future .. I keep wondering if they would be better off if they could have their own "state" within Iraq?

I don't know what the solution is - I wish I did. But .. no matter what we choose - the dems will say it's the wrong choice .. even though the dems were for breaking up Iraq from the beginning.