Everytime the Democrats criticize the situation in Iraq some Republican or mainstream pundit (Is there a difference?) demands that the Democrats present a plan of their own. So, here goes.

If we want to bring peace to Iraq and, eventually, democracy, we must split it into Kurdish, Sunni, and Shia states. Iraq is a creation of imperial Britain. It was cobbled together out of three Ottoman provinces that had existed as quasi-states for centuries prior. These peoples deserve the right to self-determination after centuries of alternating autocracies, not to be shoehorned into compliance with some sort of constitutional Rube Goldberg device built to accomodate defunct colonial boundaries. (Thanks to inimitable Michael Lind for introducing me to that fun analogy in one of his writings.) Hell, if their constitution includes a filibuster provision like ours, you'll know it's messed up!

As the situation now stands, the Shia and Kurds are ready to govern themselves, and they have been for quite some time. (If anything, our occupation has set them back.) They did so for nearly ten years while we protected them from Hussein with the No-Fly Zones after the first invasion of Iraq. All we would need to do is establish more natural boundaries, create some sort of buffer zone with Sunni Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, pay as many Kurds, Sunnis, or Shias as possible to relocate back to their homelands (with funds raised from oil tarrifs), and pay off Turkey to accomodate the new Kurdish nation.

Sure, there would be unpleasantness, but certainly no worse than we can expect from here on out. I believe we could keep a small international detachment in the new Kurdish state, an American airbase in the western desert of the Sunni state, and a naval base at Basra in the Shia state. The Kurdish and Shia nations could have strictly defensive forces. We should keep the Sunni state disarmed with a contingent of reliable pan-Arab forces to be stationed there until a trustworthy regime is in place.

Just as we should have stepped in and managed the devolution of Yugoslavia before civil war and ethnic cleansing broke out, we need to be realistic about Iraq. You can't liberate a people from themselves--no matter how much we would like to pretend that they are innocents. But, we can liberate them from oppression by each other.