BrianDavidCrane.com

Recently, an idea is being floated in and around Washington to try and break Iraq into three different autonomous regions - Shiite, Sunni, & Kurd - with the hope of slowing down the sectarian violence taking place in the country. The idea makes sense to me. Why not grant each region autonomous control over their internal affairs with a weak central government similar to Switzerland’s? Apparently, the White House is not impressed:

Presidential spokesman Tony Snow said a suggestion to divide Iraq into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish regions, each with high degrees of autonomy, was a “nonstarter.”

Already, many wealthy Iraqi citizens are fleeing to the Kurdish controlled north and the Kurds are beginning to secede from the rest of Iraq as their region is apparently the only relatively stable one:

With violence bloodying Iraq, Kurds in the peaceful north have been showing signs of going their own way, raising their own flag and even hinting they could secede in a dispute over oil wealth - moves that have alarmed Shiites and Sunnis…Kurds insist they are only using the autonomous powers given to them by the constitution passed last year that laid down a federal system in Iraq. But many of those powers - particularly the division of oil wealth - remain vague.Some Shiites are also pressing for their own autonomous region in the south, but even mere talk of federalism - amid a wave of Shiite-Sunni violence that has killed thousands this year - has raised fears of the country falling apart….While much of the rest of Iraq has been torn by violence, Kurdistan has remained largely at peace. Sunni and Shiite Arabs who want to enter Kurdistan must go through elaborate permit procedures - still, many have flocked there seeking jobs in one of Iraq’s few areas that see significant private investment.Kurdistan’s president, Massoud Barzani, sparked an outcry last month when he ordered all Iraqi flags removed from government buildings in the region and replaced with the Kurdistan flag - a green, red and white tricolor with a yellow sun.The Kurdish flags remain in place, and Barzani refuses to raise the Iraqi one - a holdover from the rule of Saddam Hussein, who persecuted the minority Kurds and Iraq’s Shiite majority - until a new national flag is created representing all of the country’s communities.

The question is: Is this such a bad thing? Why is the Administration dismissing the idea of three autonomous regions as a “nonstarter”?

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