Precedents

With the partition of Iraq ever more a de facto if not a de jure possibility, there is much interest in analogies. Here's a paper that looks at a few of them, including of course the Irish case. The thesis is that on balance partition leaves more stable entities in its wake and thus that despite the high costs, it might be worth it. In the Irish case, the paper recommends that Britain should have forced Northern Ireland to be smaller and induced some Catholics to relocate to the larger Free State.

It all sounds a bit antiseptic. And as usual with such claims, the question has to be "relative to what?" For one thing, partition rarely brings finality. As we've noted before, Michael Collins had a plan to maintain an insurgency in Northern Ireland, involving loyal lieutenants like UK Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly's grandfather. Kashmir has never been solved. So the contrast should be relative to civil war that eventually comes to resolution in the un-partitioned or reunified entity. Examples like Vietnam, Mozambique, and, er, the United States of America!