How about just splitting the darn country according to religious / tribal boundaries - that is doing it without drawing the new boundaries with ruler?
You'd get fighting over the new boundaries, natch. There'd also be a danger of continuing warfare even with 'hard' boundaries, plus the Turks would go ape**** at the prospect of a Kurdish nation next to them, and I'm not sure how Iran would react (possibly consuming the Shia 'nation'). There's perhaps a large issue over the oil in Iraq, which every side would want access to. Finally, there's in itself perhaps a risk that division on enthnic grounds would simply serve to polarise the sectarian divide.
Autonomous / devolved regions could perhaps work, but I'm not sure if they aren't already in place for the Sunni/Shia (obviously they are for the Kurds).
Except it's so totally not just an internal Iraqi problem, when it's so clear that external forces (Iran, Syria, AQ, and now apparently Saudi Arabia) are pushing and pulling at the various factions inside Iraq to cause more friction, instead of less. To draw comparisons, in the post-WWII era, there were also insurgencies around the world as remainders from the defeated nations fought little skirmishes here and there. But those eventually weakened and died out within a few years, largely because of the reconstruction efforts that (primarily) the US was fostering in Germany, Japan, and elsewhere.
Well, we're pushing reconstruction efforts in Iraq, too, and also doing our level best to get an Iraqi government that's representative of all aspects of Iraqi society on its feet. But sectarian violence is increasing, and it's not from within...in fact, there was a stretch of time where it seemed that Iraqis were settling into the idea of representative government and letting diplomacy resolve their differences. Not anymore...if anything, the increase of Iran's "boisterous" public nature has directly correlated with the increase in Iraqi sectarian violence, and there's no chance that that's a coincidence. And now the Saudis are declaring their intention to step in on the side of Iraqi Sunnis if the US takes forces away.
We're not talking civil war...we're talking war.
The Iraqi insurgency has always been a predominantly internally, ummm, 'supplied' war. Yes, there are exterior sources of funding, etc, but it's still mainly from within Iraq and by Iraqis. That's been long known, I believe, by the CIA et al.
Even with the 'democratic' elections, polling security was being handled in areas like Sadr City not by the Us or Iraqis, but by the militias - what security there is in Iraq seems almost to reside from the reliance upon ethnically defined militias killing anyone different. We've seen a classic pattern - regardless of prodding by outside forces - of Iraqi resistance (be it objection or actual taking up arms) in response to heavier US tactic which can and undoubtly will be seen as oppressive. Not to mention that having one minority group oppressing the majority, and then removing all forms of security and government, was always going to lead to problems.
It's worth nothing, too, that Irans' boisterousness has increased as Iraqs' collapse into anarchy has shown the US army to be not just less of a viable threat, but also less willing or capable to launch another war. In other words, whilst you can say Irans' outspokeness (if it's the right term) leads to rising violence in Iraq, you can also say the struggles of US forces in Iraq embolden Iran to act as they do. With the US rapidly rolling into Baghdad, Iran could fear a similar defeat - with the US now entrenched in a losing (or at least indefinately stalemated) quagmire that worsens every day, Iran can feel a lot less under threat and a lot more free to act up.
Also probably worth noting that the current ruling party in Iraq is quite friendly towards Iran, I believe.
I'm not aware, though of internal civil war in europe post WW2; can you give some examples please? Sounds interesting.
