IRAQ: TIME FOR THE 'STANS

Actually it is past time for Iraq to be allowed to breakup into three 'stans - Kurdistan, Sunnistan, and Shiastan.  Why do we keep on trying to force a whole Iraq?  It was designed to be unstable and it surely is. The only thing that could keep it together is a brutal dictator like Saddam and we didn't like him either.  Perhaps there is some way that a loose confederation of the three could be kept, but I don't know about that.  It seems as if President Obama doesn't want to preside over the breakup of Iraq.  Would a breakup benefit or harm his legacy?  I would think that in the end it would help it, but he doesn't seem to think so.

I believe that if we allowed this, the Sunni tribal leaders would rise up against the ISIS (which is a brutal dictator).  I might take some cash and armaments for the tribal leaders to do this, but that would be less costly than what we are doing now with our mission creep another group of around 450 to be sent to Iraq in addition to the 3,000 already there.).  The idea is for this latest group to be located in Sunnistan to train Sunni troops, presumably favorable to a central government.  Maybe that will succeed but I doubt it.

Nor doubt Turkey wouldn't like a Kudistan, and we would have to deal with that.  I'm sure there would be disputes over the boundaries, but that is probably more solvable than trying to keep Iraq whole.  And would Iran try to take over Shiastan?  I don't know if Shiastan would like to be incorporated into Iran, but my guess is that it would like to be pretty independent.