Word: shying
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...fact, the Sunnis may have the most to gain from partition. The Sunni insurgency feeds on popular hostility not just to the Americans but to a Shi'ite-dominated Iraqi government. Most Sunnis don't support al-Qaeda and its imitators, but they often prefer them to Iraqi security forces, which are seen as complicit in the killings of Sunnis. If the Sunnis were to establish their own region, they could have an army and provide for their own security. Since Iraq's known oil fields are in the Shi'ite south and the Kurdish north, the Sunnis do have...
...sectarian bloodbath will get worse. Iraq's Sunni-Shi'ite civil war has already claimed tens of thousands of lives and forced Sunnis and Shi'ites to abandon coexistence. This is tragic and certainly not what most Iraqi Shi'ites or Sunnis want. But once under way, civil wars tend to empower the most extreme elements. Civil wars do not end because the parties get tired of fighting. Rather, they end because of outside intervention or, more often, because one side wins. Partition will not stop the sectarian cleansing in mixed areas, but by giving Shi'ites and Sunnis their...
Iran will dominate the Shi'ite south. Iran's Iraqi allies already dominate Shi'ite southern Iraq. If the U.S. were serious about countering Iran's influence, U.S. troops would have to forcefully disarm the Shi'ite militias and dismantle the southern theocracies. But this would mean taking on a whole new enemy in Iraq and also require committing more troops. The Bush Administration has no intention of doing either. Right now, Iran's allies control both the central government in Baghdad and the south. Partition would limit Iran's influence to the southern half of Iraq...
...many Americans, the biggest appeal of partition is that it makes possible a relatively rapid U.S. exit from much of Iraq. If U.S. goals no longer include preserving national unity or establishing Western-style democracy, there is no need for U.S. troops in the Shi'ite south or Baghdad. We would leave behind a civil war and an Iran-dominated south, but that outcome would be no different if we were to stay with the current force levels and mission. One overriding interest in Iraq, however, is still achievable: that Iraq's Sunni areas not become a base from which...
Iraq is checkered by different religions and ethnicities, its history marked by forced relocations and bloody conflict. The current Sunni-Shi'ite war has once again changed the demographic map of Iraq, leading some to call for the country to be split into three states. But carving up Iraq could displace millions, provoke struggles for the control of territory and make the bloodshed even worse. Shi'ite Arabs 60% Sunni Arabs 20% Kurds 17% Others...