Iraqification? (revised much)

The buzz today is that the United States is pressing for the provisional government of Iraq to take form and take charge as quickly as possible, to "Iraqify" the occupation of Iraq and relieve the US and coalition of much of the political burden that comes with that occupation.

That would be a mistake, for one big reason. Modern "Iraq" is much like Yugoslavia. It was a political creation fusing different peoples with different religious and ethnic traditions. When the strong leader who forcefully held this mess together departed the scene, centrifugal forces flung them apart. Many of the people held together involuntarily as Iraqis didn't want to be Iraqis in the first place, they were forced into it; the rule of Saddam Hussein merely aggravated it. Guarantees of individual rights under a brand-spankin' new constitution will not assure the minorities that they can safely assign their loyalty to the provisional Iraqi government.

Don't try to build or rebuild a democratically governed Iraq. We should, instead, partition The Country Formerly Known as Iraq along those ethnic lines again. While the country is still reeling from its violent recovery from Saddam Hussein, we have the opportunity to draw some wide chalk lines on the map, to shove these people back into ethnic/religious cantons. Provide incentives for people to move themselves into cantons that identify with them.

The canton will issue passports that don't even mention "Iraq" on them, to people who can verify their birth there, through a combination of family members witnessing for each other, and whatever Iraqi official documents can be rounded up. Each canton's passport will have to be unique in size, shape, color, everything to impress on the bearer that he's no longer Iraqi. He's a Baghdadi, or a marsh Arab, or a Kurd, or so forth. Self-erasing temporary passports can be issued to people who can't prove their birth or affiliation with the canton, to help sort out the interlopers from neighboring provocateur countries.

Regulate the hell out of movement of goods and people between these cantons. Allow unfettered telecom and commerce from any one province directly to the rest of the world that speaks the same language and observes the same religious customs, but limit the bandwidth among each other (direct all telecomms from one canton to another through a coalition-controlled portal), until they've settled down.

Build quickly on each province's independence, give it incentive to control its own borders, let it issue its own currency or use a Western one. Westernize it out of sight of its like provinces. Make it a damned-independent canton with a government so close to the governed that merging it with other like provinces would be perceived by the guy in the street as a step backward.

Some of those cantons will be delighted to have budding independence and might need occasional restraint---the Kurds in particular. Some will want to do some stupid things with that independence, such as the Shi'a maybe getting cozy with Iran.

Some of those cantons will remain holdouts of Saddam's loyalists, if not Saddam himself. As the other cantons mellow out and can be managed by coalition partners, US forces can withdraw and concentrate our forces on those holdouts.

Divide and liberate this stretch of land, and quit calling it Iraq altogether.