Iraq was a British colony from 1918 to 1932, after the British defeated the remnants of the Ottoman Empire in World War I. The British arbitrarily united three provinces into what we now call Iraq, giving the region independence in 1932. From all of my observations, which I will readily concede are not those of a foreign policy expert, Iraq still seems to be three countries in spirit. Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds have formed militias, with years of Sunni terrorism and recent revelations of Shiite acts of torture. The Kurds have long wanted a homeland, moreover. So this is a plan, albeit a tentative one. It seems to me that rather than trying to force all three groups to live under one government, which would be controlled by the Shiites yet in Sunni territory, we should divide Iraq into three nations, with one for the Shiites, one for the Sunnis and one for the Kurds.
As for issue of withdrawing our troops, I think that we should move our soldiers to where we know the new borders will be before the terms are formally negotiated with moderate leaders of the three groups. Then we should keep them there as long as necessary to prevent border violence in ensuing migrations- but no longer. As for that question, no, I would not have gone to war with Iraq in the first place, but now that we are there, neither an immediate withdrawal nor an absolute timetable for withdrawal is practical or even ethical (IMO). That being said, I think that our sole purpose should be to keep order along the new boundaries, since every time that we crush a group of insurgents we add more fuel to Islamist propaganda.
Finally, without calling me a "traitor lib" or a "war-mongering neocon", please give me your opinion on whether or not it would be possible to carry out the above plan. It may be that I am not sufficiently informed to make a practical plan for the situation in Iraq, so the above ideas are tentative. I appreciate all replies that don't contain the words liberal or neoconservative. Thank you very much.

One other point this brings up is that for all those years that the Turks ran things as a decentralized empire, there wasn't as much trouble. Now it's up for debate as to whether it was indeed the Turks who kept peace or a change in thought about nationalism that entered the region in later times. But it was an idea of Churchill's that a "Britain-friendly" Ottaman empire should have been reestablished in the period after WWI to ensure peace across the area. Was Churchill right? It's too late to find out.
That probably wasn't very helpful. I had some documents on the Middle East and globalization to link you to, but I'm having difficulty with this computer. Maybe I'll remember later from a better one.

Well, nationalism existed throughout the Ottoman Empire, but it suppressed all opposition by methods that make Saddam Hussein seem mild. For example, in the Armenian massacres, the Ottoman Empire killed about 600,000 Armenians in one forced march and made about 1.2 million more of them homeless.

Turkey, Syria, and Iran would never accept a free Kurdistan. Simple as that.

Those countries could do nothing to stop us.

The US has done a pretty bad job in Iraq.

We needed to do the following:

1) Form a relationship with civic and religious leadership
2) Protect our civic and religious allies
3) Negoitate with insurgancy. It may not be pretty but it the best way to divide and conquer
4) better training for the iraq army (training camps in Iraq)
5) have the CIA try to infiltrate the insurgancy

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In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is the king
- Nas

Well, if it is realistic, at least I qualify as a foreign policy "realist".

Why should it be up to the US to "divide" IRAQ?

Believe me..I understand your plan..but why should it be up to us?

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"Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet."

Pardon my propensity for labeling, but are you opposed to dividing Iraq on liberal or on isolationist grounds? This thread wasn't to debate whether or not you like my plan, but rather whether or not it is practicable.

The problem is that the areas are not equal in resources and oil is the primary one. They will fight for the oil. It is better to make three or four states in a federalist nation with shared control of oil as part of the Constitution. It will give them a shared interest while allowing them to retain their own diverse ideologies and cultures. Over time they may even learn to intermix and live amongst one another.