New plan considers splitting Iraq into three parts.

AN independent commission set up by Congress with the approval of President George W Bush may recommend carving up Iraq into three highly autonomous regions, according to well informed sources.

Baker, 76, an old Bush family friend who was secretary of state during the first Gulf war in 1991, said last week that he met the president frequently to discuss “policy and personnel”.

His group will not advise “partition”, but is believed to favour a division of the country that will devolve power and security to the regions, leaving a skeletal national government in Baghdad in charge of foreign affairs, border protection and the distribution of oil revenue.

The Iraqi government will be encouraged to hold a constitutional conference paving the way for greater devolution. Iran and Syria will be urged to back a regional settlement that could be brokered at an international conference.

The idea of splitting a country up based on religious differences seems extremely self defeating. If the goal is to stem the violence between warring religious factions then why would the policy be to further seperate them?

I agree that there is no simple solution to the problem, but it seems that the goal should be to unify the country under a banner of nationalism where all Iraqis, regardless of how they choose to worship Mohammad, would feel connected to the government and feel that they are being represented.

And how do the experts on the Middle east feel about this possibility?

Many Middle East experts are horrified by the difficulty of dividing the nation. “Fifty-three per cent of the population of Iraq live in four cities and three of them are mixed,” said Anthony Cordesman of the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies, who fears a bloody outcome.

Baghdad is a particular jumble, although ethnic cleansing is already dividing the population along the Tigris River, with Shi’ites to the east and Sunnis to the west of the city.

Another desperately dumb idea brought to you by the people who brought you the unnecessary war in the first place.