The Kurds are long gone. You rarely hear about violence in the Kurdish sector. The Shia and Sunnis have been separating for quite a while now. The problem is that there are mixed marriages and the like. Baghdad is heavily mixed. It's very difficult to separate. That's why it's the worst for violence. The Sunni sections are where al Qaeda is thriving. Bremer disbanded the army in May 2003 and effectively turned loose 300,000 unemployed, armed young men into the streets with nothing to do. 72 hours after that order, which he was warned not to do, came the first attack on the Americans, and it's been downhill from there. Partitioning is the only real option, but it's very difficult to implement and it has to be an Iraqi initiative. We can't do that, unless we bring in a dictator to rule with an iron fist, seriously. Also, without the cooperation of neighboring states, we're spitting into the wind. And if you recall, we want to invade neighboring states, namely Iran , and we brush off Syria. ----- Original Message ----- From: To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: 10/22/2006 3:58:52 PM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The beginning of the end in Iraq Judy -- What would you say to (something I think probable) a division of the country into a Sunni state, a Shiite state, and a Kurdish state? I know moderate Muslims in Baghdad who live peacefully with neighbors and friends from a different sect but they are becoming fewer and fewer. Julie Krueger