THE IRAN PROBLEM

Reuel Marc Gerecht writes about the Iran problem this week and lays out pretty clearly the problems and opportunities our government faces when dealing with that sometimes troublesome country. Ironically, the most important actions that will have an impact on Iran are happening in Iraq.

The strongest trump playing in favor of America and against Iran is Iraqi nationalism. Nationalism is easily the most successful European export to the Middle East, rearranging, subordinating, and sometimes eliminating older ties of faith, family and tribe. Iraq's Shiites are the progenitors of modern Iraqi nationalism. They, much more than their Sunni Arab compatriots, who were the driving force behind pan-Arabism in Mesopotamia, have shaped an Iraqi Arab identity which is distinct from the Sunni Arabs to the west and Shiite Iranians to the east.

Read the whole article as Gerecht includes some very rich detail about the history of the Iraqi Shiites and what makes them so important as we move forward toward (we hope) and Iraqi democracy. Reading these types of essays also is a good reminder about the central truth (I think) about Iraq, which is that Iraq is really three different countries...a Kurdish north, a Sunni center, and a Shiite south. Almost all the violence, and U.S. casualties, is happening in the Sunni center. I haven't heard or read about any significant incidents in the Shiite south since the Al-Sadr uprising was defeated earlier this year. Those incidents that are happening in the north seem to be limited to towns with significant Sunni Arab populations, like Mosul. Unfortunately, this fact continues to lead me to believe that we may be eventually be faced with only one viable solution to the continued violence in Iraq...the partition of the country.