Should there be a Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish Iraq? One may wonder. Sectarian states based upon religion and race are bad ideas. Tell that to Israel. In a world in which humanity needs to learn to tolerate one another, policies of exclusion in any form are bad ideas. Now, because Nouri Maliki blew his presidency by becoming a sectarian Shia government he has ignited a civil war in Iraq.
The Shia and Sunni Muslim conflict has been smoldering for thousands of years and is illogical and ignorant by modern standards. Now, Sunni terrorist thugs are taking control of large portions of Iraq, behaving as uncivilized people because they are a product of ignorance and absence of rule by law. The thugs have hijacked their religion, making it even worse than aspects of its core foundation might be.
Attempting to hold the nation together is a struggle for homogeneity among diverse groups as accomplishing that will be a more stable foundation for peace than creating more sectarian states.
It might be useful to recall the words of the late Iraq King Faisal:
“The two main branches of the Semitic family, Arabs and Jews, understand one another, and I hope that as a result of interchange of ideas at the Peace Conference, which will be guided by ideals of self-determination and nationality, each nation will make definite progress towards the realization of its aspirations. Arabs are not jealous of Zionist Jews, and intend to give them fair play and the Zionist Jews have assured the Nationalist Arabs of their intention to see that they too have fair play in their respective areas. Turkish intrigue in Palestine has raised jealousy between the Jewish colonists and the local peasants, but the mutual understanding of the aims of Arabs and Jews will at once clear away the last trace of this former bitterness, which, indeed, had already practically disappeared before the war by the work of the Arab Secret Revolutionary Committee, which in Syria and elsewhere laid the foundation of the Arab military successes of the past two years.”
There was a moment when various parties addressed one another cordially and civilly. It should be the aim of all parties to operate with respect and proper decorum.
Perhaps the circumstances in Iraq and Syria can one day be resolved with maturity and wisdom when citizens are represented by responsible leaders.