The Case for Soft Partition in Iraq

Two prominent scholars are calling for "soft partition" in Iraq, as Senator Biden and Les Gelb of CFR have proposed in the past. The report is linked in PDF format.

Saban Center Analysis, Number 12, June 2007

Edward P. Joseph, Visiting Scholar and Professorial Lecturer, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
Michael E. O'Hanlon, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies

The time may be approaching when the only hope for a more stable Iraq is a soft partition of the country. Soft partition would involve the Iraqis, with the assistance of the international community, dividing their country into three main regions. Each would assume primary responsibility for its own security and governance, as Iraqi Kurdistan already does. Creating such a structure could prove difficult and risky. However, when measured against the alternatives—continuing to police an ethno-sectarian war, or withdrawing and allowing the conflict to escalate— the risks of soft partition appear more acceptable. Indeed, soft partition in many ways simply responds to current realities on the ground, particularly since the February 2006 bombing of the Samarra mosque, a major Shi'i shrine, dramatically escalated intersectarian violence. If the U.S. troop surge, and the related effort to broker political accommodation through the existing coalition government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki fail, soft partition may be the only means of avoiding an intensification of the civil war and growing threat of a regional conflagration. While most would regret the loss of a multi-ethnic, diverse Iraq, the country has become so violent and so divided along ethno-sectarian lines that such a goal may no longer be achievable.

Soft partition would represent a substantial departure from the current approach of the Bush Administration and that proposed by the Iraq Study Group, both of which envision a unitary Iraq ruled largely from Baghdad. It would require new negotiations, the formation of a revised legal framework for the country, the creation of new institutions at the regional level, and the organized but voluntary movement of populations.

Executive Summary

The time may be approaching when the only hope for a more stable Iraq is a soft partition of the country. Soft partition would involve the Iraqis, with the assistance of the international community, dividing their country into three main regions. Each would assume primary responsibility for its own security and governance, as Iraqi Kurdistan already does. Creating such a structure could prove difficult and risky.However, when measured against the alternatives—continuing to police an ethno-sectarian war, orwithdrawing and allowing the conflict to escalate—the risks of soft partition appear more acceptable. Indeed, soft partition in many ways simply responds to current realities on the ground, particularly since the February 2006 bombing of the Samarra mosque,a major Shi’i shrine, dramatically escalated intersectarian violence. If the U.S. troop surge, and the related effort to broker political accommodation through the existing coalition government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki fail, soft partition may be the only means of avoiding an intensification of the civil war and growing threat of a regional conflagration. While most would regret the loss of a multi-ethnic, diverse Iraq, the country has become so violent and so divided along ethno-sectarian lines that such a goal may no longer be achievable.

Soft partition would represent a substantial departure from the current approach of the Bush Administration and that proposed by the Iraq Study Group, both of which envision a unitary Iraq ruled largely from Baghdad. It would require new negotiations, the formation of a revised legal framework for the country, the creation of new institutions at the regional level, and the organized but voluntary movement of populations. For these reasons, we refer to it as a “Plan B” for Iraq. It would require acquiescence from most major Iraqi political factors (though not necessarily all, which is an unrealistic standard in any event). It might best be negotiated outside the current Iraqi political process, perhaps under the auspices of a special representative of the United Nations as suggested by Carlos Pascual of the Brookings Institution.

International mediation could succeed where the current, U.S.-led effort to pry concessions out of al-Maliki’s government has failed. Indeed, Kurds and Shi’i Arabs would have far more incentive to cede on the fundamental issue of oil production and revenue sharingif they knew that their core strategic objectives would be realized through secure, empowered regions. Although it would surely play a facilitating role along with the United Nations, the United States need not bear the burden, nor the stigma, of leading Iraqis towards soft partition. At the outset, it would suffice for the United States simply to cease its insistence on the alternative of an Iraq ruled from Baghdad that at once fails to serve Sunni Arabs while serving as a symbolic threat to She’s Arabs—an Iraqthat has encouraged the Shi’i Arabs to cement theirdominance of the country’s power center against anypotential Sunni Arab revival.

Soft partition has a number of advantages over other“Plan B” proposals currently under discussion. Most others focus on a U.S. troop withdrawal or on the containment of civil war spillover to other countries,rather than the prevention of a substantial worsening of Iraq’s civil war. Soft partition could allow the United States and its partners to preserve their core strategic goals: an Iraq that lives in peace with its neighbors, opposes terrorism, and gradually progresses towards a more stable future. It would further allow for the possibility over time for the reestablishment of an Iraq increasingly integrated across sectarian lines rather than permanently segregated. If carefully implemented, it would help end the war and the enormous loss of life on all sides.

Such a plan for soft partition (as opposed to hard partition which involves the outright division of Iraq) is consistent with the plan of Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del) and Leslie Gelb, a former President of the Council on Foreign Relations. Our plan builds upon their proposal, setting out the full rationale for such an approach as well as the means by which this new regionalized political system would be implemented through soft partition. Those means include creating processes to help people voluntarily relocate to parts of Iraq where they would no longer be in the minority, and hence where they should be safer. This is not an appealing prospect to put it mildly. However, if the choice becomes sustaining a failing U.S. troop surge or abandoning Iraq altogether, with all the risks that entails in terms of intensified violence and regional turmoil, then soft partition might soon become the least bad option. The question will then be less whether it is morally and strategically acceptable, and more whether it is achievable. Accordingly, the latter portion of this paper focuses on the mechanisms for implementing a viable soft partition of Iraq.

Sunni and Shi’i Arabs have traditionally opposed partition, whether hard or soft. However, with 50,000 to100,000 persons being displaced from their homes and several thousand losing their lives every month, sectarian identities are hardening as ethno-sectarian separation is increasing. In short, Iraq today increasingly resembles Bosnia-Herzegovina (hereafter Bosnia) in the early 1990s, where one of us worked extensively. While Iraq may not yet resemble Bosnia in 1995 in which ethnic separation had progressed to the point where fairly clear regional borders could be established, it is well beyond the Bosnia of 1992 when the separation was just beginning. Moreover, while Bosnia eventually wound up as a reasonably stable federation, as many as 200,000 may have lost their lives before that settlement. A comparable per capita casualty toll in Iraq would imply one million dead. It should be the goal of policymakers to avoid such a calamity by trying to manage the ethnic relocation process, if it becomes unstoppable, rather than allow terrorists and militias to use violence to drive this process to its grim, logical conclusion.

To make soft partition viable, several imposing practical challenges must be addressed. These include sharing oil revenue among the regions, creating reasonably secure boundaries between them, and restructuring the international troop presence. Helping minority populations relocate if they wish requires a plan for providing security to those who are moving as well as those left behind. That means the international troop presence will not decline immediately, although we estimate that it could be reduced substantially within eighteen months or so. Population movements also necessitate housing swaps and job creation programs.

Soft partition cannot be imposed from the outside. Indeed, it need not be. Iraq’s new constitution, approved by plebiscite in October 2005, already permits the creation of “regions.” Still, a framework for soft partition would go much further than Iraq has to date. Among other things, it would involve the organized movement of two million to five million Iraqis, which could only happen safely if influential leaders encouraged their supporters to cooperate, and if there were a modicum of agreement on where to draw borders and how to share oil revenues.

As noted, unless the U.S. troop surge succeeds dramatically, a soft partition model may be the only hope for avoiding an all-out civil war. Indeed, even if the surge achieves some positive results, the resulting political window might best be used to negotiate and implement soft partition. As of writing, it is too soon to know exactly how the current approach will fare. We are highly skeptical of its prospects. But one need not have a final assessment of the surge to begin considering which “Plan B” might succeed it in the event of failure—or even of a partial but insufficient success.