NOVICE GEOPOLITICAL QUESTION: What--exactly--are the arguments against letting Iraq break up into Shia, Sunni and Kurd states? It would rid the world of one more illogical state. You wouldn't have to force a central government on a bunch of people who don't want to live together. It would be reverse-colonial and not neo-colonial because you'd undo the post-World War map-redrawing that gave us the modern state of Iraq. You wouldn't have people on the radio talking about "the Iraqi people", as if there was such a coherent group of people who defined themselves as being Iraqi. I mean, what's the point of remaining attached to colonial-era national boundaries? Is this an oil thing?