Some 'heretical' thoughts: what's wrong if Iraq breaks up into three fragments (Sunni, Shia and Kurd), without any violence, something along the lines of the velvet revolution in Czechoslovakia? There wasn't a country called Iraq prior to 1918, anyway. On the positive side, the internal divisions tearing Iraq apart would disappear once and for all (assuming that these internal divisions are not a figment of the imagination).

Other considerations:

1. This would play right into Israel's hands by permanently weakening one of its powerful enemies.


2. Turkey would never allow this, as its own Kurdish minority would clamour vigorously to become a part of the new Kurdish state.


3. The Americans would get to play their democracy-exporting games in three countries for the price of one.