Partition for Iraq? Not Necessarily a Panacea

To begin with, partition is no panacea for civil conflict. If partitions are incomplete, or if hostile ethnicities aren’t fully separated, the effects can be just as bad as, if not worse than, no partition at all. The hasty demarcation of the former British Raj into India and Pakistan presents one of the worst-case scenarios. During the hasty devolution from colonial rule, the Kashmir territory was engulfed in competing claims by both Pakistan and India. The persistent Kashmir dispute brought India and Pakistan to blows in 1947, 1965 and 1999 and continues to dog their relations. Incidents like the Kargil conflict and 2008 Mumbai attacks both originated from the Kashmir dispute and brought India and Pakistan to the brink of nuclear war on multiple occasions. Additionally, the UN’s failure to grant Bengalis (then East Pakistanis) their own sovereignty caused a bloody split from India and Pakistan that killed thousands and displaced millions in Bangladesh in 1971, creating some of the worst war-time atrocities seen since WWII.