Ha!

Welcome back!

There may be another reason; the Kurds and Shi'a sit atop Iraq's trillions of dollars of oil, while the Sunnis have little to none. The Sunnis have been a privileged - and generally vastly more educated and sophisticated - ethnicity for centuries, and are leading the insurrection against the American presence in Iraq.

From the point of view of Anglo-American oil companies, who have sought sweet head deals in Iraq, the best way of doing things would be to split Iraq into pliant Kurdish and Shi'a parts kept pliant by American soldiers, leaving the Sunni to Baghdad and the parts of Iraq that essentially are desert. Unfortunately international law doesn't allow this. If the Sunnis continue their rebellion, an answer would be to build a wall around their areas, and let them kill each other.

If the Kurds are allowed to secede outright, a policy that the US claimed was the only moral one in Bosnia, the Turks would be royally upset, and the Shi'a would to a greater or lesser extent fall into an Iranian orbit. Neither of these inspires any joy among neo-con dreamers.

Iraq as it is is ungovernable, but by "federalizing it", the Senator from Koch stands to a) minimize Iranian influence and Turkish displeasure and b) marginalize the Sunnis, c) maintain an American presence if not dominance in Iraq d) maintain the friendship and $upport of the oil industry.

It's a smart idea, which would probably have worked had the occupation gotten off to such a lousy and incompetent start.