The case for the partition of Iraq

[Herat]

@Herat

Sect and ethnicity are two different things. I understand that ethnicity or nationalism are real factors in Realpolitik but why sect is this much important as sect means religion. Why then Kurds and Arabs in Iraq both Sunnis are not against the Shia Arabs or why Shia and Sunni Arabs are not united against another ethnicity Kurds?

Badlun my friend, read the article in this thread I posted from the muftah website, in particular, the section on Wilsonian self-determination. Both ethnicity and religion/sectarianism are inherently divisive phenomena for evolutionary reasons. But these things tend to be relative: when Europe was overwhelmingly European, the group dynamics of "racism" tended to involve other Europeans groups, Hitler and the Nazis viewed the Slavic peoples (tough they are White Europeans) as being racially inferior (incidentally, they were a main rival group at the time), for example. Nevertheless, today, ethnic nationalism in Europe tends to be racially based and is directed against non-European out-groups who now have a significant presence in Europe. Ethnic interests predominate over religious/sectarian interests but the dynamics are similar: the Sunni/Shia divide, for example, is not as pronounced here in the west where Muslims make up a minority group anyway compared to say in Iraq/Syria.

The human world is an in-group vs out-group world, my dear friend. Karl Marx was only fractionally correct, class is merely one instantiation of an in-group vs out-group phenomenon and it is certainly not the predominant one as Marx thought; ethnic and religious/sectarian group divides are far more potent (not coincidentally either, these have evolutionary roots). The only people in the world who I think seriously behave otherwise are western liberals/leftists and while they tout their quixotic notions of pluralism and multiculturalism, the rest of humanity continues to see the world in mostly in-group vs out-group terms and interests. By the way, the Sunni/Shiite Arabs are united against the Kurds in the most important sense: both oppose Kurdish independence.

now now, lets play nice.

I was simply playing his game my friend. As if I find "Iranian" offensive anyway, I am an ethnic Persian not an Afghan (Pashtun), why the hell should I find that insulting huh?

[Badlun]

Badlun my friend, read the article in this thread I posted from the muftah website, in particular, the section on Wilsonian self-determination. Both ethnicity and religion/sectarianism are inherently divisive phenomena for evolutionary reasons. But these things tend to be relative: when Europe was overwhelmingly European, the group dynamics of "racism" tended to involve other Europeans groups, Hitler and the Nazis viewed the Slavic peoples (tough they are White Europeans) as being racially inferior (incidentally, they were a main rival group at the time), for example. Nevertheless, today, ethnic nationalism in Europe tends to be racially based and is directed against non-European out-groups who now have a significant presence in Europe. Ethnic interests predominate over religious/sectarian interests but the dynamics are similar: the Sunni/Shia divide, for example, is not as pronounced here in the west where Muslims make up a minority group anyway compared to say in Iraq/Syria.

The human world is an in-group vs out-group world, my dear friend. Karl Marx was only fractionally correct, class is merely one instantiation of an in-group vs out-group phenomenon and it is certainly not the predominant one as Marx thought; ethnic and religious/sectarian group divides are far more potent (not coincidentally either, these have evolutionary roots). The only people in the world who I think seriously behave otherwise are western liberals/leftists and while they tout their quixotic notions of pluralism and multiculturalism, the rest of humanity continues to see the world in mostly in-group vs out-group terms and interests. By the way, the Sunni/Shiite Arabs are united against the Kurds in the most important sense: both oppose Kurdish independence.





I was simply playing his game my friend. As if I find "Iranian" offensive anyway, I am an ethnic Persian not an Afghan (Pashtun), why the hell should I find that insulting huh?

I think Muslim world is going through its own renaissance and reformation and very soon sect and religion will become irrelevant for politics , culture or economy. Ethnicity and nationalism will prevail and then will come the interdependence stage as we see in today's global village in the form of EU, ASEAN , NATO, OSCE and UN.

[Shah-i-Kot]

Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan are part of the same original geographic.

The ideas of partition of certain nations (however they are being seen by said individuals) usually comes from disgruntled Western academics disillusioned with the bleak future they stare at. They should be more concerned about the trillions in debt they have accrued to China.

[Herat]

Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan are part of the same original geographic.

The ideas of partition of certain nations (however they are being seen by said individuals) usually comes from disgruntled Western academics disillusioned with the bleak future they stare at. They should be more concerned about the trillions in debt they have accrued to China.

Wrong, the VAST majority of the Kurdish people want nothing to do with your jihadist 7th century Caliphate and want their own ethnic-state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_Kurdistan_independence_referendum,_2005

Eventually, the Alawites and the Shiite Arabs will come to the same stance once they realize that the only alternative to partition is being dominated by a hostile Sunni Arab majority.

[tripledouble]

Wrong, the VAST majority of the Kurdish people want nothing to do with your jihadist 7th century Caliphate and want their own ethnic-state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_Kurdistan_independence_referendum,_2005

Eventually, the Alawites and the Shiite Arabs will come to the same stance once they realize that the only alternative to partition is being dominated by a hostile Sunni Arab majority.

Most kurds want their own country but most of them are also quite religious.

[khushal]

Wrong, the VAST majority of the Kurdish people want nothing to do with your jihadist 7th century Caliphate and want their own ethnic-state.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_K...ferendum,_2005

Eventually, the Alawites and the Shiite Arabs will come to the same stance once they realize that the only alternative to partition is being dominated by a hostile Sunni Arab majority.

In reality they don't want to be part of an Iraq that suppresses them and steals their resources. Turkey is giving Kurds much freedoms and as long as that pattern lasts, why would they want to secede. Isnt the goal freedom and self determination, as long as they have that, why secede. I wouldn't be surprised if theyIraqi Kurds would want to join Turkey(if freedom is guaranteed) since that would benefit them economically and security wise.

Its just like, as long as I have opportunity in America just like everyone else, I don't want to leave, I want its education, its healthcare, its protection, its livelihood and I would have motive to protect it, right. This is the natural order. Give Kurds freedom in Iraq, you give them motive to protect Iraq. Suppress them, and you give them motive to secede.
Turkey seems to have finally understood this, hopefully Iraq can eventually realize where they went wrong.

[Bengal_Tiger]

Interesting... the theme of politics and political power in sectarian societies as a zero-sum game between sectarian groups that Ive noticed in many of these articles: this is exactly how the dynamics of group conflict is framed in realistic group conflict theory in social psychology. In Sherifs notorious Robbers cave study, in-group formation (and these were artificial groups of children's teams in a camp) by itself did not entail between group conflict -its semblance did, however, emerge spontaneously, with all the trappings of human tribalism including out-group hatred/hostility, after the groups came to compete in zero sum games over resources (prizes). Equally interesting was that the group tension was successfully diffused by getting them to play (positive sum) non-zero sum games where cooperation was mutually beneficial.
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Sherif/

Ethnic groups are the dominant naturally occurring human in-group (the in-group hierarchy in the real world tends to be based on genetic relatedness thus ethnic interests triumph over sectarian interests, which explains why the Kurds are more inclined toward separatism than the sectarian Arabs). The ingenuity of the ethnic nation state -the best form of social organization in human history- is in fact contained in this simplicity: ethnic zero-sum games over economic and political resources are minimized since groups are circumscribed within an agreed territory, confined to an agreed economic and political resource pool. On the other hand, international trade, for example, the main form of interaction between nation states, as the great economist David Ricardo famously first demonstrated (with the comparative vs absolute advantage distinction), is a non-zero sum game that relatively benefits all states involved. Sherifs Robbers cave experiment is in a way a microcosm of international relations: group conflict typically emerges as a consequence of ethnic or sectarian, that is group, zero sum games (e.g. Malikis exploitation of the Sunnis) and group and national alliances are formed within structures of positive sum non-zero sum games (e.g. economic unions).

This is exactly what the fuss is all about in Afghan politics currently: both sides expect that political power in a centralized, sectarian and ethnically divisive state like Afghanistan is a zero- sum situation with the consequence that the losing ethnic populations will ultimately be marginalized; power-sharing and/or federalism will diffuse this to some extent but the best solution will always remain to completely remove the means of competition in the first place: the best way to minimize group conflict in the real world is to remove the means of zero-sum interactions between human groups, within the context of politics, this means the formation of ethnically and/or religious homogeneous nation states.

Analysts who are touting the idea that Iraq can be kept intact are essentially asking to reassemble humpty dumpty. Their modus operandi seems to be either to ascribe virtually all the woes of that intrinsically failed state to either Maliki or western imperialism / American intervention (this is not to say that these things did not exacerbate the situation) as if Iraq was the multicultural utopia that seems to exist in the wet dreams of western leftists, prior to the American war. Reality check: ethnic and sectarian group conflict, with genocide (the Al-Anfal campaign) and all that other lovely stuff, has pervaded "Iraq" since the creation of its artificial borders by Britain and France in the first place (Skyes-Picot agreement). I think that in the light of Iraqs sectarian history, the burden of proof is on the idealists to furnish a case that sectarian and divided Iraq can work, and a few emotionally loaded anecdotes about inter-mixing and whatnot is not sufficient. As Carl Sagan would say "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".

Hi Herat, how you been buddy? Long time.

Missed you my Yem...I mean Tajik friend.

Nice write up there.

Let's have a look, in the original format it was:


4 paragraphs:

Paragraphs

#1: 5 lines + weblink

#2: 7 lines

#3: 4 lines

#4: 6 lines

22 lines in total.


I think you might be interested in the views of my good "friend", Mahmood Al-Yemeni on this:

Lately many discussions have erupted regarding the eminent future of Pakistan; and often there arises the declaration for the abolishment of Pakistan. While it's legitimate to advocate the dissolution of Pakistan; the motives for it are misguided; The Goal here is not to end Pakistan to promote justice but rather to serve the interests of other Nation-States; where does this benefit us? The Current Nation States of Asia were carved out during the Imperialistic Conquest of the Great Game; this produced the modern countries of Saudi Arabiia,. India, Pakistan and yes even Afghanistan and modern Iran. Prior to the advent of European intrusion and interference these regions became aligned not by National boundaries but regions of authority which bore allegiance to various rulers. Hence we had an Ottoman Empire, Qajarid Empires and Durrani Empires; none of them held officiated centralized nation state names such as Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakhtunistan, Iran, or Hind, other than perhaps names of regions.

In effect this battle between Nation-States and fighting for the boundaries of Nation States is really subservience to the machinations of Imperialism which seeks to maintain disparity and poverty, lack of strength, fortification and legitimate development to ensure the East remains subservient and dependent. Nationalism thus does not actually help the people the Nation State claims to represent but on the contrary the Imperial Design which was seeking to conquest and exploit people in the first place by cultivating divide and rule schemes to keep societies distracted into turning against each other and wasting their resources; allowing Imperial hegemony supremacy and exploitive control.

The Nationalists deviously try to posture themselves as representatives of Native Societies and then attempt to manipulate the masses by advocating collaboration with Imperialistic Entities to work against rival nation states; while simultaneously running the same scheme with other rival nation states. A Perfect example is the Pakistan-Afghanistan conflict manifesting in the form of many vehicles. Taliban, Puppet Regimes, Northern Alliance or the ISI and other elements all somehow connected to the American CIA, British MI6 and other Imperialist institutions.These people who advocate collaborating with Imperialists are really working against their people and use Nationalism as a pretext to serve Imperialism and this is how they maintain dependence rather than collaborate with people who share same natural alliances and connections whether religion or geography; and developing our own independent resources outside of Imperial dependence. Such boundaries only benefit imperialists and not the native regions. They're inventions of interference to assist in the manipulation of rivalries. This is why the advocates of Imperialism

This is why there needs to be dissolution of Nation State boundaries as it is preventative and keeps the global network in perpetual servitude and dependence; and allows resources and energies to be wasted. Those who have tried to oppose such a move only demonstrated they're slaves of people who have tried to colonize the region and hence their move to work along side them and promote their agenda. The more we keep nation state politics the furthere we'll always remain deprived. All Nation States are byproducts of these demarcations and these daermarcations were set in place for a reason; if we are to reverse the damage done we have to undo the mechanisms which led to engendering it.

Link

If you go to the original webpage from where I've quoted this, you'll notice some similarities.


4 paragraphs:

Paragraphs

#1: 6 lines

#2: 4 lines

#3: 7 lines

#4: 4 lines

21 lines in total.


Similar writing style including the heavy use of colons/semi-colons.

Totally different views on the subject though.

One advocating the complete rejection of the ethnically based nation state (you...I mean ScimitarXEdge) and making these states in to bigger chunks, whilst the other one written (by you...oops I mean "Herat") advocates breaking these states up in to smaller chunks.

It's almost like ScimitarXEdge (Mahmood Al-Yemen) and you are long-lost twins with the same writing style, same structure, same formatting and length of paragraphs, same topic-focus but playing devil's advocate with each other.


Anyway Mahmo....I mean "Herat", hope you are keeping well.

[Bengal_Tiger]

Stop quoting me you half Arab filth.

Mahmood Al-Yemeni was banned under his "Revulsion Through Ranting" nick at that time so bored he decided to come under a new login, "Herat".

He spoke of destroying Afghanistan and breaking it up.

However there were some tell-tales that this clown was actually just posing as some Tajik separatist.


- Similar writing style.

- Almost exact paragraph formatting i.e. if you go to the actual page where it was written, it's almost the same (the number of lines per paragraph is different when quoted).

- Excessive use of colons or semi-colons.

- Obsession with Kushan_Prince.


Anyway well done Kushan, you knew all along.

Gotta hand it to you bro.

[Bengal_Tiger]

Others knew that Mahmood Al-Yemeni was actually "Herat", a supposed Tajik separatist and Islamophobic atheist.

http://www.pashtunforums.com/showthread.php?t=44670&page=2

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"Herat's" reaction.

Anyway if "Herat" had played his part correctly he would have been confused as to who "Mahmoud" was supposed to be, the fact that he instantly knew that "Mahmoud" was a reference to Revulsion Through Ranting { (c) Toramana} was a slip up from the clown and chronic bully.

Here we see how "Herat" knows that "Mahmoud" is actually RTR (Revulsion Through Ranting).




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Islamophobic and an atheist persona.

So [MENTION=5723]Kushan Prince[/MENTION] you were not alone.

On a more serious note, ignoring the antics of Al-Yemeni, for those silent readers (who outnumber active members 40 to 1), there is no real desire for separatism from any ethnic group in Afghanistan and there is a strong pan-Afghan desire for a united nation, this is from my experiences and interaction with Afghans which can be attested to by the members here who have more authority to speak than I do on such matters.

[khushal]

[MENTION=17960]Herat[/MENTION],
Your explanation of evolutionary theory is misguided. Evolutionary theory's explanation of species first and foremost priority is survival. People or groups will align themselves with other people or groups if it increases their survival expectancy. As long as there are hegemonic powers that are much larger than the said groups. These said groups, even if they are different ethnically, racially, linguistically, or religiously, will unite to counter the hegemonic power for the sole reason to increase their survival. Balkanization is a long shot since the people of ME has too many similarities ie language, religion.
Your prediction contradicts the theory of Realism.

The EU is actually a response to US hegemony. Nation states will eventually come together to counter the hegemony. So your prediction is actually flawed since it is in the hegemonic power interests to keep the nation states small and dependent therefore to keep hegemony over them. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

@Savage, what do you think?

[Kushan Prince]

[MENTION=17960]Herat[/MENTION],
Your explanation of evolutionary theory is misguided. Evolutionary theory's explanation of species first and foremost priority is survival. People or groups will align themselves with other people or groups if it increases their survival expectancy. As long as there are hegemonic powers that are much larger than the said groups. These said groups, even if they are different ethnically, racially, linguistically, or religiously, will unite to counter the hegemonic power for the sole reason to increase their survival. Balkanization is a long shot since the people of ME has too many similarities ie language, religion.
Your prediction contradicts the theory of Realism.

The EU is actually a response to US hegemony. Nation states will eventually come together to counter the hegemony. So your prediction is actually flawed since it is in the hegemonic power interests to keep the nation states small and dependent therefore to keep hegemony over them. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

@Savage, what do you think?

Savage and Herat are the same people.

[Bengal_Tiger]

Savage and Herat are the same people.

ScimitarXEdge
RevolutionThroughReason
Herat
Brown Skinned Savage

= The same person.



An ex-Taliban supporter who also had an account as an anti-Islamic atheist.

An Arab from the USA trolling and abusing members and undermining the forum.

One reason why I am posting far less these days.

[Kushan Prince]

ScimitarXEdge
RevolutionThroughReason
Herat
Brown Skinned Savage

= The same person.



An ex-Taliban supporter who also had an account as an anti-Islamic atheist.

An Arab from the USA trolling and abusing members and undermining the forum.

One reason why I am posting far less these days.

Its fairly obvious. He has too much time on his hands so he has no other purpose in life but to troll, he is also why i hate coming here now. God know's how many other forum's he is trolling.

[Bengal_Tiger]

Its fairly obvious. He has too much time on his hands so he has no other purpose in life but to troll, he is also why i hate coming here now. God know's how many other forum's he is trolling.

He drove female users away a few years back with threats to spam them with porn apparently.

Yep, I've cut down my posting here, e.g. not starting any new threads or updating my old ones.

[Black Pakistani]

The Shia areas should just join Iran, it makes more sense.