Two Is Better Than None

By the summer of 2003, the dust had settled on the US invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam Hussein's brutal regime. Academicians, politicians, and pundits then began characterizing the US strategy for stabilizing Iraq as an uninformed afterthought that was doomed to failure. Some commentators advocated partitioning Iraq into three states: a Kurdish north, a Sunni Arab center, and a Shi'a Arab south. The calls for partition continue today as Iraq struggles with seemingly intractable sectarian bloodshed, with advocates contending separation is the only way to remedy US and colonial blunders and quell the violence. Meanwhile, the US policy is to maintain Iraq as a unitary state.