THE DANGER OF IRAQI PARTITION by Stan Goff

[The increasing pressure on the Bush administration at home in the wake of the Cindy Sheehan catalyst and an impeding mass mobilization against the war on September 24th lends more urgency to show a result in the Iraq war - the latest one being a draft Constitution. But not only is this issue so arcane to the average American ear fails to provide any resonant symbolism, the real result of the forced pace of the draft is exacerbating an extremely adverse political situation for the US in Iraq and the region.

The primary forces remaining in the Iraqi "government" are semi-puppets. On the one hand, they are dependent on American military power for the time being to maintain the current balance of forces in their favor. On the other hand, they clearly have an agenda that is designed to consolidate that long-term power through a pact of some sort with Iran.

This has created a polarization between current direct participants in the Iraqi government and the minority - strategically located and well-armed - Sunnis/nationalists in the north. That is not a cultural polarization but a political one that further entrenches the Faustian alliance between the government and the US occupiers each day, though there is no inhering reason among the general populations - who have for years seen inter-ethnic and inter-denominational marriage, etc. - for any pressure to partition the country.

The so-called Iraqi government does not in fact exercise real governance over any but a fraction of Iraq, and the "city-state" phenomenon throughout the country is setting the stage for a universally unacceptable Balkanization of Iraq, at the same time that it is developing the probable (and yet largely unknown) future local leadership of Iraq.

At some point in the future, most of these actors will have to deal with one another politically.

The Shia interim government and the US have maneuvered themselves into the same corner with antagonistic goals if and when they ever find their way out. The Sunnis and nationalists of the north have no stake in partition, and with the withdrawal of occupying forces would b e freer to negotiate a political settlement with the south. This leaves one hugely influential local leader in the most flexible position in Iraq right now - Muqtada al Sadr.

He is the man to watch in Iraq for now.

Meanwhile, the greatest impediment to a political solution to post-invasion Iraq is not some cauldron of inter-ethnic rivalry. It is the politico-military distortion produced by the American occupation. –SG]