They have found the solution! Divide Iraq into three mini-states and then pit them against one another. Does that remind you of something else? Oh, yes! It's not the first time something like this happened....

The New York Times published an editorial on November 25, 2003 carrying Leslie Gelb's by-line. He's an influential man who, until recently, presided over the very important Council of Foreign Affairs, a think tank that brings together the CIA, the secretary of state and big shots from U.S. multinational corporations.

Gelb's plan? Replace Iraq with three mini-states: "Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center and Shiites in the south." The objective? "To put most of its money and troops where they would do the most good quickly — with the Kurds and Shiites. The United States could extricate most of its forces from the so-called Sunni Triangle, north and west of Baghdad.... American officials could then wait for the troublesome and domineering Sunnis, without oil or oil revenues, to moderate their ambitions or suffer the consequences."
...to divide Iraq has, in fact, been an old Israeli dream. In 1982, Oded Yinon, an official from the Israeli Foreign Affairs office, wrote: "To dissolve Iraq is even more important for us than dissolving Syria. In the short term, it's Iraqi power that constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. The Iran-Iraq war tore Iraq apart and provoked its downfall. All manner of inter-Arab conflict help us and accelerate our goal of breaking up Iraq into small, diverse pieces."

So, Gelb wants to break up Iraq while transforming the north (Kurdish majority) and the south (Shiite majority) into "self-governing regions, with boundaries drawn as closely as possible along ethnic lines."

But didn't this method provoke a civil war and a bloodbath in Yugoslavia? Because all the diverse regions in that country contained significant minorities, and partition was impossible without the forced transfer of populations. That is why Berlin, and then Washington, discreetly financed and armed racist extremists, who were nostalgic for World War II. This made civil war almost inevitable because the IMF and the World Bank had plunged Yugoslavia into bankrupt to make it submit to triumphant neo-liberalism after the fall of the Berlin Wall. All of this was carefully concealed from the public.

Just as they are now concealing from the public the fact that all of the peoples of the former Yugoslavia have been plunged into misery and unemployment, which is worse now than it has ever been. Meanwhile, multinational corporations have taken the upper hand in controlling the country's wealth.

In Iraq too, the three large populations do not reside "each in their own region," but are, for the most part, intermingled. Furthermore, Gelb knows very well that to start up this strategy in Iraq once again would, in all likelihood, provoke serious "ethnic" conflicts, even maybe a civil war. He cynically announces that the state in the center of Iraq "might punish the substantial minorities left in the center, particularly the large Kurdish and Shiite populations in Baghdad. These minorities must have the time and the wherewithal to organize and make their deals, or go either north or south."

Doesn't the Yugoslav precedent serve as enough warning? The truth is that, for Gelb, the civil war in Yugoslavia was a great success for the U.S. because it permitted the breakup of a country that resisted multinationals.

Again the Theory of "Ethnically Pure States"!

In effect, Gelb openly refers to "a hopeful precedent ... Yugoslavia." Curious, indeed! Weren't we told that the United States intervened there in order to prevent "ethnic cleansing"? Not at all, he admits : "ethnically pure" states are alright when they serve Washington's plans.

While extolling "ethnically pure states" (Gelb also speaks of "natural states"!), he criticizes Tito for having regrouped in a united Yugoslavia "highly disparate ethnic groups," while pretending that Iraq is "an artificial state" for the same reasons; Gelb is resorting to old theories held by the extreme right.

His theory about ethnically pure states is really identical to Hitler's: "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein F¸hrer" (one people, one empire, one f¸hrer). It is also a theory adopted by Zionists who dream of Israel "purified of Arabs."

The truth is that the United States — just as all other colonialists — is for or against ethnically pure states according to whether or not it suits U.S. strategic interests. The only thing that counts is to weaken resistance. Divide in order to conquer. As always. The Britons carefully organized the division of Ireland, India and Pakistan as well as other places in the world. The influential U.S. strategist, Zbigniew Brzezinski, wants to divide Russia into three countries in order to isolate Moscow from oil reserves. The CIA also has its "own plans" to divide Saudi Arabia. In an era when very large economic and political entities are forming around the European Union and the United States, look at how these same Great Powers are organizing the balkanization of certain other states — states that resist them.

The guiding principle of U.S. international policy is that there is no guiding principle. The U.S. can pretend to fight ethnic cleansing one day and then organize it the next. And with complete arbitrariness. In the past, the United States had obliged the Kurds to remain inside the Turkish state which was being led by fascist generals, but today, the U.S. is preparing a Kurdish state, allegedly rooted in the principle of "self-determination" (in reality a puppet state). They are pretending to bring democracy to the world, but in these instances the U.S. is rehabilitating fascist theories about "ethnically pure" states.

The Danger of a Theory that Is Exportable throughout the World

The danger of this false theory goes far beyond Iraq and Yugoslavia. Most of the states existing on the planet today are "multinational." And sensible people consider themselves to be enriched by this mixing of cultures. But if one allows theories of "ethnically pure" states, the USA would have a pretext to break up any "multinational" country that resists it.

Washington, in effect, intends to trample to a greater and greater extent international law and state sovereignty. The U.S. is preparing to do throughout the world what it had begun in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, which, unfortunately, a majority of Western leftists allowed them to do for the worst reasons. Stop! It is time to assess the disastrous alliance of this Left with the United States in the Yugoslav and Afghan affaires. If anyone wants to resist global war, that is to say the recolonization of the world, it is time to come to the defense of the sovereignty of Third World countries, a principle that is embodied in the UN Charter. This change for the better took place in 1945 and the USA is intent on dismantling it...


Translated by Milo Yelesiyevich Also available in French and Spanish michel.collon at skynet.be