Resolved: The United States should encourage the implementation of a soft partition in Iraq.

Expert conclusions prove that partition fails to stop future war Sambanis, Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale University, 2000 [Nicholas, Partition As A Solution To Ethnic War, World Politics 52, July, Project Muse] This paper poses a serious challenge to partition theorists by providing a rigorous test of the theory with a comparison of post–civil war realities in both partitioned and nonpartitioned states. It focuses on countries that have experienced civil war; it does not consider cases of peaceful partition.8 I begin by summarizing other authors' critiques of partition theory in the next section. I then identify the main determinants of war-related partition and test the three core hypotheses of partition theory: (1) that partitions facilitate postwar democratization; (2) that they prevent war recurrence; and (3) that they significantly reduce residual low-level ethnic violence. My tests lead me to reject the most critical tenets of partition theory. I find that partitions do not help prevent recurrence of ethnic war and that they may not even be necessary to stop low-level ethnic violence. Although it may seem like a clean and easy solution, partition fares no better than other outcomes of ethnic civil war. I turn now to a summary of the debate. Partition theory relies on unrealistic premises Sambanis, Associate Professor of Political Science at Yale University, 2000 [Nicholas, Partition As A Solution To Ethnic War, World Politics 52, July, Project Muse] Furthermore, even if successor states were homogeneous, the mobilization perspective of ethnic conflict would suggest that, unless partition is accompanied by regime or leadership reform, there is no guarantee that ethnic groups in successor states will not be mobilized into another war against residual minorities.19 So again the theory's claims depend critically on unrealistic premises about the ethnic composition and political institutions of successor and predecessor states. A partition of Iraq could result in an all out state on state war – this is magnified by the fact that the US does not have the human power necessary to suppress mass violence The Washington Post, 2006 [Merits of Partitioning Iraq or Allowing Civil War Weighed, April 30, http://www.washingtonpost.com... ] Even carrying out a planned division of Iraq may prove more difficult than it appears, warned an officer now serving in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division, which is on its second tour there. "It's a simple, blunt approach to preventing sectarian violence," he said. "However, it won't stop all infiltrations and violence, and it may simply result in armed camps that eventually resort to all-out, partitioned state-on-state war." Preventing major ethnic and sectarian massacres such as occurred in the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan would require huge investments of time and money, hard to come by four years into the war, warned Hammes, the counterinsurgency expert. "We will have to develop and fund some kind of displacement agency to move the families and set them up -- very manpower and civilian expertise intensive!" he said in an e-mail interview. A partition is impossible and would have violent unintended consequences The Washington Post, 2006 [Merits of Partitioning Iraq or Allowing Civil War Weighed, April 30, http://www.washingtonpost.com...] Others think that dividing Iraq itself is a pipe dream because it wouldn't solve the basic problems racking the country. "There is no way a partition would work," said Army Reserve Lt. Col. Joe Rice, who recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq, expressing his personal opinion. Baghdad is a deeply mixed city, he noted: "The largest Kurdish city in Iraq? Baghdad. The largest Sunni city? Baghdad. The largest Shiite city? Yep, Baghdad." Also, he said, it would be difficult to parcel out Iraq's greatest treasure, its oil reserves, in a way that all three major groups would find acceptable. What's more, if partition actually happened, it probably would have several unintended consequences, such as creating a hard-line, anti-American Sunni mini-state, possibly giving al-Qaeda a new haven, said Michael Quigley, a former expert on terrorism at the Defense Intelligence Agency who has served in Iraq. Partitioning would result in either an all out civil war or an increase in hundreds of thousands of troops Byman, Senior Fellow, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, and Pollack, Director of Research, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, 2007 [Daniel and Kenneth, Keeping the Lid On Iraq's Civil War, The National Interest, May, http://www.brookings.edu...] This is why some argue that the solution to civil war is partition-as Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) and John Owen IV, among others, have argued in these pages. The basic problem with pursuing any version of partition today in Iraq is that it is probably impossible to do so without either causing an all-out civil war or deploying the hundreds of thousands of American and other first-world troops whose absence has been the first-order problem preventing reconstruction from succeeding. Other than the Kurds, few Iraqis-whether political leaders, militia commanders or ordinary citizens-want their country divided. And many of those who are fleeing their homes are not merely peacefully resettling in a more ethnically homogeneous region, but are joining vicious sectarian militias like the Mahdi Army in hope of regaining their homes, or at least extracting revenge on whoever drove them out. Partitioning would result in violence rather than a benevolent distribution of land Byman, Senior Fellow, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, and Pollack, Director of Research, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, 2007 [Daniel and Kenneth, Keeping the Lid On Iraq's Civil War, The National Interest, May, http://www.brookings.edu...] Nor is it clear that a move to partition would result in the neat division of Iraq into three smaller states, as many of its advocates seem to assume. As noted above, the Sunnis and the Shi'a are highly divided and are likely to fight amongst themselves, leading to regular war within the communities and a probable fracturing of power in areas where they predominate. Many militia leaders, particularly the Sadrists, have made clear that they intend to fight for all of the land they believe is "theirs", which seems to include considerable land that the Sunnis consider "theirs." Baghdad is one area of contention between Sunnis and Shi'a, but many other major cities are also home to multiple communities. Some of Iraq's oil also lies in areas that are not peopled exclusively by one group. Partition would lead to massacres and ethnic cleansing Byman, Senior Fellow, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, and Pollack, Director of Research, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, 2007 [Daniel and Kenneth, Keeping the Lid On Iraq's Civil War, The National Interest, May, http://www.brookings.edu...] In the end, after years of bloodshed and ethnic cleansing, a massive civil war in Iraq may eventually create conditions for a stable partition. And the United States should be prepared for this possibility. However, a major U.S. effort to enact partition today would be likely to trigger the massacres and ethnic cleansing the United States seeks to aver SO all in all a partition is bad and I will rebut my opponents points next post.