While a US State Department official confirms why the US government should not be believed on Iran’s nuclear “threat” – Stephen Rademaker, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, says that Iran may be capable of making nuclear weapons within 16 days (!) – a former Israeli diplomat, who worked on the Iraqi desk in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem, has a solution for Iraq – split the country in three:
America needs an alternative policy that will ensure a legacy of peace and stability in Iraq, leaving behind democratic institutions while enabling a timely and honourable exit for allied troops.
This goal may not be attainable if Iraq is to be maintained by force as a single unified republic. In fact, Iraq has for the past few years been de-facto partitioned between an increasingly autonomous and flourishing Kurdistan and the Arab (Sunni and Shi’ite) parts of the country.
To seek a solution one must look outside the Middle East. The American diplomatic precedent to focus on is not Vietnam, but the Balkans.
Has this always been Israel’s goal?