Alice in Iraqiland

Joost Hiltermann, writing in the Baltimore Sun, has put forward four steps to save Iraq from distintegration. Juan Cole mentions him, although it isn't obvious if it's approvingly or not.

I hope not, since I generally appreciate Cole's realism. Hiltermann's four points are:

• Iraqi political leaders renounce violence and so inform their followers,
• an inclusive and representative government must be formed,
• the constitution must be revised to meet everyone's objectives, and
• the security forces must be trained by the US to replace the militias.

That's the gist of it. Cole describes Hiltermann as "veteran," which sounds like the guy should know what's up in Iraq, but his four points have been US policy for years and all four are proving to be unachievable. What's the point in laying them out again?

Perhaps the logic is to demonstrate that the disintegration of Iraq is now inevitable and that the US should simply try to figure out the least damaging exit strategy. If these are essential and all are out of the question, let's go home! George Will called on President Bush to give Americans the unvarnished truth. I doubt he meant that we've lost and should high tail it out of town. Americans are approaching that realization, but you don't sell newspapers or attract TV audiences by being pessimistic before the time is ripe.

I've been saying for three years and I'll say it again that Iraq will fail over two non-negotiable issues -- control of Kirkuk and control of Baghdad. The Kurds have wanted nothing from Iraq except to be out of it and they need Kirkuk. They got it from the constitution last fall and they aren't going to negotiate it away now. Nobody has anything to offer them that's worth as much.

This is a national destiny issue and the Kurds won't back down. The Iraqi arabs are going to be very unhappy as are the Turks, which may make life very interesting for the US, a NATO ally of Turkey. There could easily be civil war over Kirkuk with a dangerous international flavor.

If not, then the Sunni arabs will have lost one of the two things they need to obtain and Baghdad will loom even larger. They need to control Baghdad, which in turn must control some semblance of national government with oil revenue from the South. That's not going to happen peacefully.

There are three groups and two oil regions. The historic ruling group, which has abused and oppressed the other two for decades, is the one with no oil in its natural geographic base. This isn't going to be settled amicably. Every day brings us closer to the inevitable civil war. Let's get out now.