Is Iraq Over With?

While all eyes are fixated on the total decimation of yet another Arab country by Israel (and America by proxy), Iraq is crumbling quickly and at least Juan Cole thinks it
mau al be over.

Borzou Daragahi of the LA Times argues that the plan of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim for a 9-province provincial confederacy in the Shiite south of Iraq is tantamount to a partition plan. He reports that Shiite politicians are increasingly talking about the need for such a partition, and are thinking of the Tigris as a border that could demarcate Sunni Arab West Baghdad from Shiite East Baghdad. (Shiites should be careful, since this plan implies that they would lose Kadhimiyah). Al-Hakim clearly envisages deploying the Badr Corps along the resulting Sunni-Shiite border to stop the infiltration of bombers, just as the Kurdish Peshmerga functions as the army of the Kurdistan Regional Government. Daragahi is correct that the Shiites of the south envy the Kurds' regional unity and semi-autonomy.

The Sunni Arabs will never, ever accept being reduced to a minority with no access to Iraq's oil resources (which are mainly in the Shiite south and the Kurdish north), and any such partition is a recipe for a long drawn out civil war.

I have a sinking feeling that Iraq is over with, and that we're just standing around watching the train wreck unfold.

Basra municipal government has collapsed to the point where the garbage is not being collected, and diseases are spreading. Al-Zaman says that Prime Minister Maliki formally withdrew from the Basra governing council the security portfolio.

The August GQ carries a very important piece by Jeffrey Gettleman of the NYT on how security in Baghdad has collapsed in the past year and a half.