A Shi‘a Crescent is alarming on its face, particularly in the threat it would pose to Israel. But not only Israel would feel compelled to take counter-measures. Iranian ascendancy would alarm Sunni actors-both states such as Saudi Arabia and terrorist networks-who aspire to unite the umma under their leadership rather than that of the Shi‘a. These actors would have some interest in drawing together to counter-balance Iranian leadership. A purely realist reading would suggest that the region will enter some sort of equilibrium. Indeed, America and other Western powers might induce Syria-a country ruled by Shi‘a-related Alawites but whose population is 70 percent Sunni-to abandon Iran, which would complicate Iranian plans for regional hegemony. Still, this outcome relies heavily on spontaneous power balancing based upon divisions within the Muslim world and also on heroic restraint by Israel.

The risks of quitting Iraq, then, are very great. What other course is open to the United States? Some prominent foreign policy thinkers have favored the partition of Iraq into Shi‘a-Arab, Sunni-Arab and Sunni-Kurdish rump states. The remarkable rise of Iran over the past few years compels us to take the three-state solution seriously.

The partitioning of Iraq would be dangerous-more like that of India or Yugoslavia than that of the Soviet Union or Czechoslovakia. Much Iraqi territory, including Baghdad itself, is home to members of more than one ethnic group. Many of Iraq's oil deposits and facilities straddle the current ethnic boundaries, and areas that are exclusively Sunni-Arab have little oil. The risk is great that some oil fields, or the Sunni-Arab rump state itself, would fall into jihadi hands. Hence, outsiders must assist with the partition, and Iraq's neighbors would insist on being involved. America's ally Turkey is adamantly opposed to an independent Kurdish state, and working with Iran would be a delicate matter indeed.

Should all of these difficulties be managed, however, a three-state solution might better maintain a balance of power in the region between Iran and Sunni actors. A model would be the fragmented Holy Roman Empire (Germany) after the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. Some German states gravitated toward France, others toward its competitors. The system did break down on those occasions when Louis XIV and later Napoleon attempted to subjugate the German states. But in general, the fragmentation of Germany that lasted until 1871 reassured the great powers, and indeed they took pains to preserve it. In the case of a partitioned Iraq, the rump Shi‘a state would tilt toward Iran, the rump Sunni-Arab one toward Jordan and Saudi Arabia and the rump Kurdish one (perhaps) toward the United States. If the regional powers agreed to the independence of the three states, they would develop an incentive to uphold the status quo. Furthermore, insofar as the rump states were ethnically homogeneous, they would not themselves dissolve into civil wars, and hence not entice neighbors to intervene on behalf of "their" people.

It is the nature of the Tehran regime that forces us to think about Iran when thinking about Iraq. Were the long-awaited liberal reform or revolution in Iran to come, that country's goals would probably overlap more with those of the United States. Unlike in Sunni states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, much of the Iranian public-particularly the educated urban young-is oriented toward the West. Their country, unlike Egypt and Saudi Arabia, has actually tried Islamism, and has found it wanting. There are reports that even conservative Iranian forces are worried about the costs that Ahmadinejad's radical policies and statements have inflicted on the country. A constitutional-democratic Iran would still want regional influence, but that influence would be more consistent with U.S. interests.

So regime change in Iran is to be hoped for and encouraged, but not counted on, and certainly not attempted by force. In the meantime, we must proceed in Iraq so as to contain Iran. Three-and-a-half years after the fall of the Ba‘athi regime, America's least bad option in Iraq may well be to begin organizing, with Iraqis and other external actors, the partition of the country-a country cobbled together by the British in 1921 and held together ever since by coercion and repression. Partition would not be a happy ending to Operation Iraqi Freedom. If it is too risky, then Washington should send thousands more troops now. Riskiest of all may be continuing the status quo: We are losing, Iran is winning, and we are enemies. One of those three facts must change.

John M. Owen IV is associate professor of politics at the University of Virginia and author of Liberal Peace, Liberal War: American Politics and International Security (1997).

Tempering Ambitions

Daniel Pipes
Whether the Iraqi expedition is judged a success or failure depends almost exclusively on the views of Americans-not those of Iraqis, other coalition partners, or anyone else. So, fellow Americans, let's debate the topic. My take:

It was right to pre-empt Saddam Hussein before he could oppress his Iraqi subjects further, invade another country, deploy more chemical weapons or build nuclear weapons. The world is a better place with this abominable thug in jail, not lording it in his "presidential palaces."

Alongside the easy and fast victory over Saddam Hussein, the Bush Administration made a critical conceptual mistake-raising short-term expectations too high. Nomenclature alone required Operation Iraqi Freedom to quickly produce a vibrant, healthy, open, calm Iraq, with anything less constituting failure. Talk of a "free and prosperous" Iraq serving as a regional model foisted ambitions on Iraqis that they-just emerging from a thirty-year totalitarian nightmare, saddled with extremist ideologies, deep ethnic divisions and predatory neighbors-could not fulfill.

As Iraqis failed to play their appointed role, frustration grew in Washington. Deepening the trap of its own making, the administration forwarded these ambitions by bogging itself down in such domestic Iraqi minutiae as resolving inter-tribal conflict, getting electricity and water grids to work and involving itself in constitution writing.

Had the U.S.-led coalition pitched its ambitions lower, aspiring only to a decent government and economy while working much more slowly toward democracy, Iraq's progress over the past four years would be more apparent. The occupying forces should have sponsored a democratically minded strongman to secure the country and eventually move it toward an open political process; and this approach would have the benefit of keeping Islamists out of power at a moment of their maximal popular and electoral appeal.

The basic coalition message to Iraqis should have been: You are adults, here is your country back, good luck. Transfer some seed money and station coalition forces in the deserts with a clearly defined mandate-defend Iraq's international borders, ensure the security of oil and gas exports, search for Saddam Hussein and his henchmen, prevent large-scale atrocities.

These should-have-beens remain relevant as 2007 approaches. The administration can still frame the debate in terms of U.S. interests, not Iraqi ones. It can contrast Iraq today with yesteryear's totalitarian model rather than a potential ideal. It can distance itself from Iraq's fate by reminding the world that Iraqis are responsible for shaping their destiny.

But the administration shows no signs of gearing down its ambitions in Iraq along these proposed lines. Should it stick with its unrealistically high goals, I fear failure then looms. The implications of that failure, as in Vietnam, will primarily be domestic, with conservatives and liberals returning to their pre-Reagan battle stations and the United States reverting back to what Richard Nixon in 1970 dubbed its "pitiful, helpless giant" status.

Daniel Pipes (http://www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures (Transaction Publishers).

Baghdad or Bust

Gary Rosen
The declared aim of American policy is an Iraq that can "govern itself, defend itself and sustain itself." That is a fine definition of long-term success, but in our present fix, it is too abstract and comprehensive, to say nothing of its embarrassing distance from any fair assessment of conditions on the ground. We need a more achievable, concrete goal, one that would point unmistakably to progress and, ultimately, to a way out. My suggestion? A concerted effort to turn the Iraqi capital into a model city-or at least into a livable, functioning one. Call it "Baghdad or Bust."

In saying this, I do not mean to be flip or simple-minded. Our aims in Iraq cannot be reduced to a slogan. But with the end of the Bush Administration in sight and the 2008 presidential race approaching, our Iraq policy is in desperate need of tangible results, especially if one hopes, as I do, that the United States will maintain a substantial presence there for several more years. The war is "straining the psyche of our country", as President Bush himself recently conceded, and that strain has proved impervious to the dogged optimism of the administration. Securing and pacifying Baghdad would go some way toward dispelling the sense of despair that now hovers over the whole question of Iraq.

My proposal is not exactly a new idea. During the summer, in the face of mounting sectarian strife and of an insurgency far indeed from its "last throes", the Iraqi government and U.S. military rolled out a new security plan for Baghdad. Additional forces (overwhelmingly Iraqi) were brought in to man checkpoints, conduct searches and take up positions in key neighborhoods; a security perimeter of trenches and other barriers will soon encircle the sprawling city.