With little improvement in the federal political situation in Iraq, there has been much speculation of whether or not Iraq would dissolve into 3 separate countries, roughly along the lines of its sectarian populations:  Kurds in the North, Sunnis in the center, and Shiites in the South.  To many, this seems like a natural solution to the problem, after all the three new "countries" would basically be successors to the old Ottoman provinces of Basra (Shiite), Mosul (Kurd), and Baghdad (Sunni*).  In general, post-Colonial era politics of the 20th and 21st century have repeatedly led to the creation of new states along ethnic, sectarian, or religious lines.  What is rarely discussed, however, is whether or not this creates more problems than it solves?  In essence, are more and more countries a good thing?

 Today, in 2007, the generally agreed upon number of countries is 194 (192 UN Member states, plus Vatican City, and Taiwan).  In stark contrast to this, in 1900 there were only 57 countries, as large empires carved up most of the world's smaller "countries" amongst themselves.  Between 1860 and 1895, about 80 countries were wiped off the map.  Most of these were due to Italian and German unifications, as well as European imperial movements which eliminated most of the African and Asian kingdoms and khanates. 

 In the 20th and 21st centuries, large countries are again splitting into smaller and smaller ones.  The 20th-century trend toward more countries began with Cuban independence (following American military action) in 1898; Australia, Panama, Norway and Albania followed in the next decade. Since then, about 130 more countries have emerged from the breakup of European colonial empires including the breakup of tsarist Russia, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman empire after World War I.  Decolonization in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and the Pacific between 1945 and 1980 created many more countries; and the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia led to the current number, with the world's newest country being East Timor.

What remains unclear, however, is whether additional countries lead to a more peaceful, or more conflicted planet?  To be sure, nationalist movements across the globe have been pressing for smaller and smaller territories to be recognized as sovereign.  It is certainly no longer fashionable to be ruled from a far away capitol. 

Remember the Yugoslavian conflicts of the 1990's?  Where there was one country, there are now 6:  Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.  Even this number is unsatisfactory to many.  The Kosovar Albanians would like independence from Serbia.  Srpska (Banja Luka) is talking about "Republic."  Even Bosnia and Herzegovina are considering breaking up their federation.  In fact, whenever there is talk about creating new countries, it is inevitable that one group or another will believe that their cause is worthy of yet further subdivision.  Unfortunately, these subdivisions rarely fall neatly along current geo-political lines.  They usually follow much more messy historical or ethno-population lines leaving dangerous grievances. 

The Kurds believe that their "Kurdish homeland" includes parts of modern Syria and Turkey.  Armenians believe that Armenia should include territory from Turkey, Georgia, and Azerbaijan.  The Chechens want a separate Muslim homeland distinct from Russia.  Many Tibetans would like to regain independence from China.  India has been on the verge of ethnic breakup many times since its independence.  Indeed both Pakistan and Bangladesh broke off from the India that Queen Victoria knew.  And then there are the Palestinians (a term that historically refers to very different populations), some of whom believe in a homeland subdivided from Israel, others believe their homeland consists of all of Israel, and yet others who believe that parts of Jordan and Egypt are also rightfully Palestinian Arab.  Nationalist movements are by no means limited to central Asia or the Middle East:  Basques have been fighting for an ethnic homeland in modern Spain. Some Corsicans have been fighting the French for years.  Others would like to separate Northern and Southern Italy.  There is even a movement called "Hawai'i Independent and Sovereign" that would like to see secession from the United States. 

As many nationalist movements have been successful at creating new countries out of the old orders, the trend is clearly towards more "countries."  The problems begin when some of these countries begin to exercise their new found sovereignty against the interests of global stability, and often directed at their former rulers.  This is especially true in an age of nuclear proliferation when countries like Iran and North Korea are showing the world that it is possible to gain disproportionate world attention (and resources) through what they would call sovereign exercise of rights, but others would call nuclear blackmail.

It is unclear what (if any) the correlation of "sovereign proliferation" to armed conflict is.  After all, 16th and 17th century Feudalism led to many wars, as did 18th and 19th century Empire.  The bloodiest wars of all, the World Wars of the 20th century, were fought between mostly Colonial powers.  Despite wars being fought between Empires, these powers were quite good at suppressing conflict within their territories (though their methods were often brutal).  As smaller countries have emerged from this old order, it has become increasingly necessary for the world as a whole to "police" or suppress conflict within and between territories that do not have the capacity to do so themselves, or where government has failed or broken down.  Witness the genocidal killings in Darfur where Muslim North Sudanese have been systematically exterminating ethnic Blacks in the South and East.  The conflict in Afghanistan, where NATO is attempting to keep the peace, is another example where years of war have eroded the power of any central government to maintain order.

The United Nations defines Peacekeeping as "a way to help countries torn by conflict create conditions for sustainable peace."  In fact, the UN overseas most of the world's peacekeeping missions with 17 active deployments. The UN is certainly not the only peacekeeping organization with NATO, the Economic Community of West African States, the European Union, and especially the United States all performing at least some peacekeeping duties.  With more and more conflict zones throughout the world, the need for peacekeeping troops has only increased and the dangers they face are on the rise.  It is clear that more and more of these "Global policeman" are necessary to keep order.  The UN, lacking its own troops, has shown an inability to meet the increasing demand, and conflicts like Afghanistan and Iraq have shown the limitations of organizations such as NATO's, or countries such as the United States', ability to reduce or end conflict adequately. 

The emergence of so many newly sovereign countries is severely straining the International community's ability to maintain order and suppress conflict.  As these functions were previously undertaken by Imperial or Colonial rulers, they have increasingly handed them off to inter-governmental bodies such as the United Nations and NATO.  These inter-governmental bodies necessarily lack the sovereign mandate to act decisively to end or prevent conflict and necessarily rely on squabbling member-states, with often conflicting interests, before any mandate can be agreed upon.  The delays this lack of consensus necessarily produce allow dangerous conflicts like Darfur and Iranian and N. Korean nuclear proliferation to go unchallenged until they sufficiently threaten other sovereign powers -- a condition likely to lead towards war. 

In short, we are trying to solve localized problems by creating newly sovereign countries without having built sufficient International mechanisms to solve the disputes this will necessarily create.

Most assume, for instance, that the creation of a Palestinian state will solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict of the last half century, however, how many have really answered the question of what will be done the day after this new state is created and it continues to seek armed conflict with Israel?  Will Israel be justified in declaring war and reoccupying the territories, and if so what then has been accomplished?  As Rudolph Giuliani wrote in the October 2007 edition of Foreign Affairs, "It is not in the interest of the United States, at a time when it is being threatened by Islamist terrorists, to assist the creation of another state that will support terrorism. Palestinian statehood will have to be earned through sustained good governance, a clear commitment to fighting terrorism, and a willingness to live in peace with Israel."

If Iraq does dissolve into three new sovereign states, what will the International community do if Turkey takes over the Kurdish North, or if Iran takes over the Shiite South?  The Syrians were content to do just that in Lebanon for 20 years, with the International community doing very little.  The recognition of new sovereignty has been a political and diplomatic game of one-upmanship for more than a century.  Perhaps before we recognize the 195th country, we should first take a long hard look at how the current 194 are going to police themselves.  This process should begin with reforming the UN, which is an entirely different discussion.

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* During late Ottoman times, the province of Baghdad was actually heavily Jewish.  According to the French vice-consul to Baghdad in 1904, Jews numbered 40,000 of 160,000 residents.  By 1921, the British population figures for the city of Baghdad were 202,200 inhabitants, of which 80,000 were Jewish, 12,000 Christian, 8,000 Kurds, 800 Persians (Shi’ia), and 101,400 Arab and Turkish Muslims (Sunni).  In 1952, practically the entire Jewish population of Iraq was exiled with the vast majority emigrating (forcibly) to Israel with the bulk of their lands and properties confiscated.

"What do you mean?  I didn't do it.  Don't blame me, it was him!"  We must have heard these words thousands of times; however they have recently become far more frightening as they are often heard not on grade school playgrounds, but in the halls of Departments of State the world over.  Fighting wars used to be the exclusive domain of sovereign powers.  Waging symmetric war -- that is, army to army -- has now become far too costly both in treasure and personnel, especially when waged against a modern industrialized power.  As such, many of the world's most disagreeable regimes have now made asymmetrical warfare, through the use of proxies, virtually de rigueur.

 Last summer's particularly nasty war in Lebanon pitted sovereign Israel against Iran and Syria's proxy: Hezbollah.  Iran dares not confront the United States directly but is covertly sponsoring many Shi'ite proxies in Iraq to hit American troops.  Sudan conveniently blames the "Janjaweed" over the massacres in Darfur, even when its own government planes have bombed villages to clear the way for the "insurgents."  When the PLO morphed into the Palestinian Authority following the Oslo accords in 1994, the dominant Fatah party quickly formed the "Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades" who continued the movement's terror campaign against Israel unabated.  Even Hamas, a terrorist group in its own right, after gaining legitimacy following Palestinian elections in 2006, simply changed the name of its militants to the "Al-Qassam Brigades" who's masked gunmen could then continue firing missiles into Israel and throwing rival Fatah activists off buildings while respectably dressed Hamas "spokespeople" could say "We knew nothing about this outrage!"  It would seem that these governments no longer wage war, it's always a "troublesome splinter group" that's responsible.  The problem is that now even the splinter groups have splinter groups.  The proxies now have their own proxies!

Why the proliferation of proxy militias killing civilians and destabilizing the world order?  The simple answer is that, as a political strategy, they have worked flawlessly.  Countries who sponsor terror proxies have been very adept at the use of "plausible deniability," literally the "It wasn't me, it was him" defense. 

When the Reagan administration pulled out of Lebanon in 1984, it was in response to the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 Americans by a previously unknown group called "the Free Islamic Revolutionary Movement."  In fact, this group was put together by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards who also train and supply Hezbollah today.  The US did virtually nothing in response to the attack, and the pullout from Lebanon achieved Iran's aims of distancing American power from the Middle East.  When another Iranian proxy hit another US barracks, the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the response was again virtually nil.  Not surprisingly, governments hostile to the US saw this successful strategy and repeated it many times, including The USS Cole bombing in Yemen in 2000. 

On June 24, 2007, another previously unknown group the "Jihad Badr Brigade" killed 6 UN Peacekeepers in Southern Lebanon, after firing a few errant missiles into Israel a week prior.  This "militant group" has been found to be linked to Hezbollah.  Hezbollah, like Hamas, is trying to re-brand itself a political party and also, like Hamas, refuses to give up its (UN outlawed) independent militia.  The militia simply renames itself whenever politically expedient.  The same people are committing atrocities, the same people are killing civilians, but armed with a fresh new name and grievance the world somehow treats this as a new problem rather than an all too familiar old one.

The solution to this problem is as readily apparent as on any grade school playground: Consequences.  Like any child looking to test authority, a lack of consequences only reinforces a sense of invulnerability and a belief that they are somehow not bound by the same rules that everyone else must play by.  Like an errant bully using weaker kids to achieve his goals, rogue nations use proxies to achieve their ends while avoiding the consequences of direct involvement.  To begin to see Peace in the Middle East, there must first be order and security.  To achieve order and security, rogue nations must be told -- in no uncertain terms -- that the arming, financing, and support of terrorist proxies is unacceptable and carries with it stern consequences.

This cannot be the laughable response of endless bickering in the UN Security Council where, even after repeated flouting of resolution after resolution, Iran continues its nuclear program virtually unabated as the West argues with Russia and China over increasingly meaningless sanctions.  Iran must understand that a serious price needs to be paid for supporting  militias that kill American troops; Syria must understand that a serious price needs to be paid for re-arming Hezbollah; and Sudan must understand that a serious price needs to be paid for its tacit support of the Janjaweed and their cleansing of Blacks from Darfur in favor of their Arab brethren.

A new treaty needs to be circulated between the great powers of this age, the G-8 countries plus China and Australia, that together provide the vast majority of military "peace keepers" that calls for automatic sanctions for any regime found to sponsor, support and encourage terror organizations.  Rogue nations can no longer be allowed to hide under the safety of sweet-heart oil contracts to China or lucrative arms contracts with Russia.  The time to act is now, before a nuclear armed Iran decides to "lose" a couple of warheads in Hezbollah’s direction only to say "What do you mean?  It wasn't us.  See it was them!" 

The Economist Magazine this week published a cover headlined "Israel's wasted victory, the six-day war, 40 years on."  The magazine summarized the extraordinary military achievements that led to Israel's pummeling of 3 Arab armies and the conquering of land 3 times larger than the pre-war state in an awe-inspiring 3 days.  The story described the incredible opportunity that this victory afforded Israel and how in 40 years that victory has been squandered, due mostly, to an inability to agree on what the state (and the region) should -- or realistically could -- look like decades later.  As I read the article I couldn't help but think that the same lessons are worth learning with regards to America and Iraq.

Those lessons can be summarized into three main categories:  1. Peace Within - That is the ability of differing groups, clans, or factions to live in peace within a governmental framework.  2.  Peace Without - The ability to live among often hostile neighbors in a relationship that is strategically prudent.  3.  Societal Peace - Marshaling the aftermath of war to better your society.

Israel believed, following 1967 that the best way to ensure "Peace Within" would be to quickly consolidate its territorial gains into the fabric of Israeli society.  Many Israelis believed (wrongly, as it turned out) that by treating the Arab residents of the conquered territories the same way Israeli Arabs were treated -- that is building Western-standard infrastructure for water, sewage, power, and schools, in areas almost completely neglected by their former Jordanian and Egyptian sovereigns -- that they would in time become Israeli.  Unlike their Arab brethren who did not flee Israel in 1948 and subsequently became Israeli citizens, the Arab populations of the newly conquered territories assumed the identity of "Palestinians" and collectively decided to resist Israel head-on in a way that their former host governments were unable to do.  Instead of building a "Peace Within" by lavishly spending on infrastructure and connecting Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights into Israel, the Israelis unwittingly created an enemy within that (like Hamas threatens almost daily) would like nothing better than to destroy it.

Similarly, by deposing the unpopular dictator Saddam Hussein, the United States believed that it could achieve "Peace Within" Iraq by providing a democratic voice to the disparate Sunni, Shia, and Kurds of Iraq.  The war planners believed -- naively -- that by empowering political expression, Iraqis could accept peaceful coexistence.  Instead, the major religious factions began looking at nation-building as something of a Zero-sum-game.  That is, any gains for one's religious or political rival is a loss for one's own ambitions.  This infighting quickly spiraled into armed conflict with local or religious militias vastly outmaneuvering the nascent Iraqi army and police forces.  What was to be a peaceful and democratic country is devolving into three separate entities based loosely on religious affiliation, only one of which (the Kurds) is particularly friendly to the US.

No less important than building a "Peace from Within" is "ensuring Peace from Without."  War is fundamentally about protecting yourself from your enemies.  In the aftermath of the six-day war Israel had achieved "strategic depth" of territory that it could not imagine before the war and for the first time in its short 19 year history breathed a collective sigh of relief that it was no longer in existential peril.  The reality, however, was that Israel's strategic problem was not only in its territorial depth, but rather in its demographic minuteness.  A small country of 5.5 million Jews, surrounded by over 300 million Arabs sworn to your destruction is necessarily a ticking-bomb waiting to explode.  Israel's best hope for a Peaceful and prosperous future was and is to negotiate Peace with its neighbors.  Following their losses in the Six-Day war (in Arabic "an-Naksah," the setback), the defeated Arab governments were so humiliated that they were in no position to talk peace of any kind with the Israelis.

Far from being a setback to America's enemies, the victory in Iraq provided a golden opportunity for Syria and Iran to strengthen themselves by entangling the US in an ever deepening Iraqi morass.   A strong, democratic Iraq would serve as an extremely dangerous foil to the theocratic Iranians or the autocratic Syrians.  Both countries fear their own populations and neither can afford the inevitable democratic murmurs that would result from a successful Arab Democracy right across their borders.  The US had an opportunity in the momentary euphoria following its deposition of Saddam to clean things up, to remove the massive stockpiles of weapons, and to seal the borders in an attempt to prevent the infiltration of foreign agents and jihadists.  Mistakenly believing that Iraqis of all kinds would welcome America as their liberators and sit down together to draw up a successful form of government, the US missed this opportunity and found itself fighting an increasingly intransigent insurgency as well as defending itself from an ever more belligerent Iran.

Besides the internal forces shaping conquered populations and the external forces shaping new geo-political realities are the more subtle forces facing the victors themselves, the "Societal Peace."  In the aftermath of 1967 Israelis began to see themselves not as cornered underdogs, but rather as hardened warriors willing and able to take care of themselves.  While this transformation was welcome, indeed desired by fervent Zionists, the role of "occupier" was certainly an unwelcome consequence of the war.  The Israelis, like the Americans in Iraq, saw themselves as benevolent rulers, truly hoping to build institutions of peace and live side by side with the Arab populations in their midst’s.  It was not until the first intifada (uprising) in 1987 that most Israelis understood that the Palestinians had no desire whatsoever to live under Israeli rule.  It was one thing to defend yourself against Arab terror, it was quite another to police a hostile population in your midst.  Rather than unite Israelis, this harsh reality became a wedge in Israeli society that still divides the country.

Iraqis face a far different and even more profound societal dilemma:  "What does it mean to be Iraqi?"  For that matter, is that identity even worth defending?  The United States has the advantage of being half a world away from Iraq.  Unlike the Israelis who are fighting in their own back yards, the Americans can and will one day return home.  George Bush set the extremely lofty goal of building the first vibrant, pluralistic Democracy in the Arab Middle East.  The Iraqis however, lacking the social institutions, and historical background for a cohesive pluralistic society are devolving back into the tribal affiliations that existed before the British thrust upon them the identity of "Iraq" following World War I.  For Iraq, "societal peace" means first and foremost putting the loyalty to one's clan or religion behind the loyalty to a united federal government, a goal that seems to be getting further and further away.

It is much easier to focus and analyze the results of war and victory through the lens of history.  Seeing clearly, and making the right decisions at the time, through the fog of war, is a much trickier prospect.  Wars, however, tend to be nasty and always have consequences that we need to be mindful of.  It is too late for Israel to create a peace of its choosing based on the victory of the Six-Day war and it is too late for the US to create a peace of its choosing based on the victory over Saddam Hussein.  It is not too late, however to create peace on both fronts, however that peace will come at a significantly higher cost. 

What is needed most now is a vision for the future more than for the present.  The outline of a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict has long been in the offing.  Bill Clinton got deceptively close before leaving office in 2000, and subsequent suggestions have all looked extremely similar.  What has always been missing has been strong leadership able to sell the necessary compromises to increasingly skeptical populations.  Strength in leadership is also sorely missing in Iraq.  The weak government is being challenged by well financed and well armed groups doing the bidding of hostile foreign powers who have a large stake in keeping just the right level of chaos in Iraq without letting that chaos spill over the borders.  They know that if America can be kept occupied playing policeman that they just might be able to get away with the incredible repression of their own populations.

One thing is clear, however:  If the urge to bury our heads in the sand prevails and America withdraws from Iraq, as many in the US are now urging, we will be making the same mistake Israel made following 1967.  We will be choosing the easy route thinking that our work is done when it is really just beginning.  Stabilizing and shaping Iraq will not be easy but the future dividends of a stable Democracy in the heart of the Middle East will be well worth our while.  This is precisely why countries such as Iran are fighting so hard to make sure that does not happen.  Let's make sure that 40 years from now we don't see headlines that read "America's Wasted Victory."