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Jan. 9, 2009

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Why there's hope amidst the destruction

Martin Peretz: At War, Not at War

Charles Krauthammer: Will Olmert screw it up yet again?

Jan. 8, 2009

Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Arab regimes secretly rooting for Israel?

Larry Elder: Israelis and Palestinians: Who's David, Who's Goliath?

Jeff Jacoby: Yes, it's anti-Semitism

Jan. 7, 2009

Jonah Goldberg: Who are the real Nazis?

Anne Applebaum: Pointless Peace Proposals

Jan. 6, 2009

Caroline B. Glick: Iran's Gazan diversion?

Dennis Prager: Dissecting Dershowitz

Jan. 5, 2009

Mark Steyn: Gaza has its version of rocket scientists

Mona Charen: The So-called International Community

Jan. 2, 2009

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: Having a holy tongue

Caroline B. Glick : Hamas' march to victory

Dec. 31, 2008

Dore Gold: Is Israel Using 'Disproportionate Force'?

Renee Enna:: Succulent 'stewp' is quick, easy fix

Dec. 30, 2008

Jonathan Mark: Israel's Response Is Disproportionate

Wesley Pruden: It's time once more to blame the Jews

Dec. 29, 2008

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Chanukah: 'Give me Judaism or give me death'

Michael B. Oren: A crisis and an opportunity

Dec. 26, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: When the past meets the future

Caroline B. Glick: Iran and Hamas do Christmas

Dec. 24, 2008

Rabbi Dovid Zauderer: Judaism's Santa problem

The Kosher Gourmet by Ethel G. Hofman CHANUKAH FORK-FINGER FOOD FEAST

Dec. 23, 2008

Caroline B. Glick: Repeating failure in Gaza

Dec. 22, 2008

Rabbi Boruch Leff: Too many Jews today are missing the intended purpose of one of Judaism's most beloved holidays

Barry Rubin: Liar, liar, pants on cease-fire

Dec. 19, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Final Battlefield

Caroline B. Glick: Betting on a dead horse

Dec. 18, 2008

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky: Juicy Chef's hella top, hella bottom, hallelujah in the middle

Craig Crossman : More gifts for geeks --- and those who love them

Dec. 17, 2008

Dion Nissenbaum: Israel kicks out outrageously biased UN official

Craig Crossman : Gifts for geeks --- and those who love them

Dec. 16, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: The Gift of Joy

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Uncle Shariah

Dec. 15, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Expert witnesses who put themselves first

Barry Rubin: What they say isn't what you hear

Dec. 12, 2008

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg: Can the Bible be a secular language?

Caroline B. Glick: What a PM Netanyahu faces from Washington

Dec. 11, 2008

Rabbi Leiby Burnham: Our role in the Divine's global corporation, World Inc.

The Kosher Gourmet by Steve Petusevsky: A retro-tasting pareve pot pie made with a light hand

Dec. 10, 2008

Rabbi Paysach J. Krohn: Groom admits he was caught "red handed"

Kara McGuire: No money for gifts? No problem

Dec. 9, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Can I make my boss treat me fairly?

Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Next Steps in the Indo-Pakistani Crisis

Dec. 8, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: 'Chanukah Bush' flap and graciousness

Mark Steyn: Jews get killed, but Muslims feel vulnerable

Dec. 5, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Truth --- The Key to Gratitude

Jeff Jacoby: UN's obsession is grotesque and Orwellian

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Sept. 1, 2005 / 27 Av, 5765

Breaking Iraq apart will splinter the region

By Jack Kelly

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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Iraq has a proposed new constitution, which will go before Iraqi voters for approval in a referendum Oct. 15th.

The outlook is cloudy. Most of the Sunni Arabs on the committee which drafted the constitution wouldn't sign it, for fear they won't get what they imagine to be their fair share of Iraq's oil revenues.

Iraq's proven oil fields are in the north, where the Kurds are, and in the south, where the Shia Arabs are. The Sunni Arabs are concentrated in the west central portion of the country.

So Sunnis suspect the constitution's provisions for federalism will make it possible for the Kurds and the Shia to abscond with the oil.

Since the Shia and the Kurds together comprise more than 80 percent of the electorate, there is little doubt the proposed constitution can attract majority support. But a provision put into the law that governs the referendum at the insistence of the Kurds could bite them.

That provision says that if two thirds or more of the voters in any three provinces reject the constitution, it is null and void. The Kurds dominate the three northernmost provinces, so this would permit them to veto any provision they did not like. But there are also three provinces in which Sunnis are a majority.

If the constitution is rejected, the Kurds may press for formal secession. This will be described as a catastrophe by two sets of people.

The first are those who regard — or at least want you to regard — any development in Iraq as bad so long as President Bush figures to get some credit for anything good.

The second, comprised chiefly of our diplomats, are those who think any change in any border is bad. It is fascinating to me how the State Department is always for the status quo, no matter what the status quo is, and no matter how bitterly State opposed the status quo before it became the status quo.

As Ralph Peters points out in his superb book, "New Glory," our commitment to intact borders is so great that "a Republican secretary of state tried to persuade the splintering Soviet Union to remain whole — after we had finally cracked it apart."


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This is ridiculous. We face monstrous problems today because the boundaries of most countries in Africa and the Middle East were drawn by European colonialists for their convenience, without regard for the wishes of the people who lived there. Tribes were divided by artificial borders. Bitter enemies were thrust together in the same "country."

Iraq is an example. It was cobbled together from three disparate elements of the Ottoman empire after World War I.

I would like to see Iraq stay together in a democratic federal union, providing for the rest of the Arab world an example of a peaceful, prosperous multi-ethnic society. And I'd just as soon we not have to put up with the headaches a breakup of Iraq would entail.

But what for us would be a mild headache figures to be a migraine for our enemies, says Jack Wheeler.

Wheeler is a real-life Indiana Jones. He's parachuted onto both the north and south poles, led expeditions up the Amazon. He spent much of the 1980s with anticommunist resistance movements in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Angola and Mozambique. And — after Ralph Peters — Jack is the best "outside the box" thinker I know.

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Fewer than half the people in Iran are ethnically Persian, Wheeler notes. There are more Kurds in Iran on the border with Iraqi Kurdistan than there are in Iraqi Kurdistan itself. In the northwest there are eight million Azeris who would rather be part of neighboring Azerbaijan. There are three million Turkmen in the northeast who would rather be part of Turkmenistan. In the southeast, there are three million Baluchis who would rather be part of the Pakistani province of Baluchistan.

The mullahs in Tehran are waging war to break Iraq apart, but this is suicidally stupid, Wheeler says, because Iraq breaking apart will lead inevitably to Iran breaking apart.

"So if the mullahs are crazy enough to crank up the Persian ratchet by going after Shia Iraq, George Bush may be happy to crank it all the way until Iran shatters," he said.

Wheeler also explains why partition of Iraq spells curtains for Syria and Saudi Arabia. But you'll have to read about this in his excellent newsletter, "To the Point." I've run out of space.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.



JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan administration. Comment by clicking here.

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