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

this was the NFL's October public forum debate topic, and i feel like debating it again. Resolved: The United States should encourage the implementation of a soft partition in Iraq. My partner and I affirm this resolution with the following points. Point one: Soft partition is an eventuality. Point two: Soft partition is better then staying the course. Point three: Soft partition will split up the warring factions. I will handle the first point while my partner will handle the last two. Seeing how the resolution is about Iraq a brief history of the country would be beneficial to the debate. According to Dr. Henry Grab, a Middle East history professor at the University of Maine, The Middle East we know today was created by the French and British in 1918, after World War 1. They decided to split an oil rich region of the Ottoman Empire between them. This region was made up of the countries we now know as Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. Which was previously three separate, unaffiliated regions, consisting of three different ethnic groups who had no desire to be in the same country as one another. The southern region had Shiites, the central region had Sunni, and the northern region had Kurds. The British installed a puppet government led by a Saudi Arabian Sunni monarch, starting a brutal tradition of oppression of the Shiite and Kurds by Sunni, until we ousted Saddam in 2003. Since the resolution also revolves around a soft partition, I should explain how one would work in Iraq as well. According to Senator Joseph Biden's five-point plan for Iraq, the country would be slit up by sect, as allowed in the constitution, meaning that Baghdad would have limited power. According to his plan the only things the government could do was control border defense, foreign policy and the distribution of oil revenues to the regions based on population. There are two choices for Iraq, staying the course and change. We could stay the course, and if were willing to have 150,000 troops in Iraq until the end of time we just might stabilize the country. Or we could start to solve the underlying problems. As I said before Iraq was created from three regions that wanted nothing to do with one another and was held together by brutal dictators. The separate militias are fighting to get control over Baghdad, as to gain control over the rest of the country. So when you consider how the country was made and why the militias are fighting one another, it only makes sense to soft partition the country and let the regions rule themselves. Our first point is that Soft partition is an eventuality. The two main Islamic sects, the Sunni and Shia, are fighting each other for control of Baghdad. The fighting has gotten so bad that according New York Times correspondents Edward Wong and David Cloud, the U.S. military has had to build a wall around a neighborhood to curb the violence. It has become obvious that these two groups will not reconcile in Iraq, at least in the foreseeable future. That is why unless the government in Baghdad decides to separate the Sunni and Shia, much like a bartender separating two people fighting in a bar; the country will probably never be at peace. In fact, the Shia militias, who far outnumber the Sunni militias, may decide that they have had enough of the Sunni and decide to kill them all off. Then the Sunni will be in forced to prove the "security dilemma", which according the Brookings Institution report entitled "The Case For Soft Partition in Iraq" is quote "a phenomena in which displaced persons seek security through homogeniality" end quote. That means the Sunni would come together in a homogeneous area for security. What, you may be asking is the difference between this and a soft partition? Well in this scenario, according to the Brookings institution, millions would be killed in the process of forming this homogeneous region. And that is defiantly not in the U.S.'s interest. So, we are left with a choice, should we encourage the safe, controlled implementation of a soft partition, or should we let ethnic cleansing and sectarian violence do it for us? Our second point is that soft partition is better than staying the course. There are two options for Iraq, staying the course, or solving the problems facing the country. Because the current situation in Iraq is that whichever group controls Baghdad, controls the country, the country will probably not be in peace for the near future. Therefore, least violent, if not easiest, way to progress in Iraq is to lessen Bagdad's power. But how, you ask, is that possible? Well, we have to give power to regions within Iraq. If we continue down the road, we are on in Iraq then the end result will be a no holds bar civil war. As long as all the power is concentrated in one place then the sects will continue to fight over it. To quote dr. grab again "the cause of the fighting in Iraq is over control of the country, splitting it up [partitioning it] will allow them to co-exist." According to a recent USA Today poll, 100% of Baghdad Shiites say that ousting Saddam was right. They are tired of Sunnis leading the entire country and oppressing them. Since only one group can be in charge, the solution is to divide the power into regional governments, that way the Sunni and Shiites will not have to fight each other over control of the entire country and can instead assume control over their own region and make laws based on their beliefs. Our third point is that a soft partition will spit up the warring factions. Iraq today is much like a large bar fight. It seems like the Sunni and Shiite will continue fighting each other for control of Baghdad, and the country. So the problem becomes how do you stop two people fighting who do not want to stop. The only way to stop them is to separate them, and then take away what they were fighting over. If the power is taken away from Baghdad and given to separate regions, then what is there left to fight over? The entire point of a soft partition is to split up the warring factions and then let them decide things for themselves, so they do not fight each other over them. If the Sunni and Shiites have their own regions then they will not have to fight over control of the country, because most of the power will be with the regions, because Baghdad will only have limited power.