Wednesday, October 31, 2007

About that map (with another update)

One of the institutes run by the Hakim (SIIC) family has been distributing in the province of Karbala a map showing a three-part federal division of Iraq, with two (not three) hands clasped over by the Iranian border, and rays emanating from there to the Kurdish region in the north and the "region of the center and the south" in the south. Abu Aardvark dug this up (via jihadi forums and Haq agency, who said they found it on a international resistance website called Qawm (?)), and you can see the image there. One of his commenters notes that the Sunni region in the west looks like Mordor, which is true, it does. There is something particularly odd that contributes to that.

The Southwest portion of Anbar province has been lopped off from Anbar and assigned to Karbala province. And Haq says the member of parliament who first publicized this map called attention to that, and said the reason was to eliminate any common border between Anbar province and Saudi Arabia. (Actually he calls it Ramadi province and says the map purports to transfer the "western one-third of Ramadi province" to the "region of the center and the south", so as to eliminate the "Ramadi" border with Saudi Arabia). So this is a document distributed by the Hakim organization in Karbala, showing Karbala having annexed a major part of Anbar province, thus purporting to eliminate any Sunni-Saudi border. Moreover the heading says "Federalism: Our only path to security and freedom", so it isn't too much of a stretch to think that "security" in this case includes the point about having direct "federal" Shiite control of the whole border with Saudi, via annexation of that big part of Anbar.

Biden and the Democrats have been marketing Iraqi federalism as a neutral concept that only recognizes facts on the ground. But if you scratch around even a little, you will see it is just as likely the opposite: A formula for internal border wars between the sects. At that point, once that gets going, Biden and his cohorts will say: Ah, but these border wars are already going on, forgetting that they helped foment them. Sounding familiar?

UPDATE: The Roads to Iraq blog identified the original mecia source for this Qawim.net, and in addition to the Ramadi-Karbala switch, also noted something funny in the north, where it appears Kirkuk province has been given to the (Sunni Arab) region of the center.

ANOTHER UPDATE: See the comments. Looks as if Karbala at one time was the size the federalists are now (again?) ascribing to it.

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Take a look at this map : http://gulf2000.columbia.edu/images/maps/IraqProvincial_1990_lg.jpg.
You can see the author of the "federal" map used the pre-1990 provincial borders. Notice that by contrast to the MP's critique, the Anbar province in both maps still has a (small) common border with Saudi Arabia.

9:04 AM  
Blogger badger said...

Well I'll be... It does look as if Karbala was at least until 1990 the size it is in the "federal" map. Does anyone know the history of this? Did Saddam cut up Karbala at some point and give the big chunk to Anbar, and now the "federalists" are out to reverse that? As for that little piece of remaining border with Saudi, it looks like you're right there too.

10:11 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What you both are arguing and it is very noticeable leads to the belief that Iraq is not one country but three. Hence the argumentation of the initial size of each province.
Another form of deceit for sure.

And by the way Badger, I know your ego is ultra sensitive and can only take uncritical praise so will not surprised if you don't publish this comment.

Typical middle eastern ego maniac like most arab men.

2:21 AM  
Blogger badger said...

On the contrary, those are very trenchant insights, and presented in such an interesting way! But why stop there. One Iraq for each province, eighteen in all! Badger the arab egomaniac! With someone like you maybe we can really beef up the page-hits...

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