Iraq was not simply an artificial construct. The provinces of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul existed prior to and under Ottoman rule in a manner similar to the provinces of the Balkans, and even though Iraq's present day structure was imposed from outside, the country has a national identity that cannot be dismissed. The British ruled Iraq's fractious populations just as the Ottoman Turks did-using a policy of divide and rule, they played off ethnic groups and tribes against each other while according the Sunni Arabs education and military training in Turkish academies and status and employment in the Ottoman and then British-controlled military and civil service. Dividing Iraq would replicate external rivalries and risk international meddling.
 

Iraq is not unique in its Sunni-Shia make-up. Shia Arabs constitute the majority of the population in Bahrain and Lebanon and comprise nearly 20 percent of the population of Saudi Arabia, concentrated in its oil-rich Eastern Province. A Shia state in Iraq would probably not be an Iranian satrap (a good Persian word) but it would be weak and prone to meddling by Iranian, Pakistani, or even Indian Shia, all of whom are present in Iraq in considerable numbers. Iraq's southern Arab tribes did not convert to Shia Islam until the late 18th-mid 19th century and even then, tribalism remained important in defining identity. The issue here is this: partitioning Iraq could set a dangerous precedent for other countries with populations divided by sectarian or ethnic differences.
 

Iraq does not divide logically or neatly between Sunni Arab and Shia Arab. They live intermixed in much of Iraq and in Baghdad, where an estimated 60 percent of the population is Shia, 20 percent Sunni Arab, and 20 percent Kurd and Turkman. Sunni Arabs live in the southern cities of Basra and Zubayr and along the borders with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Iraq's Arabs-Sunni or Shia-do not now and never have sought division. There is a long tradition of inter-communal cooperation and intermarriage. Many Sunni Arab clans and families, including Saddam's, have Sunni and Shia branches. Moreover, Kurds, Shia Arabs and Sunni Arabs have worked together in Iraq's past and could again in the future. Iraq under the monarchy had Shia prime ministers and Cabinet ministers as well as Kurdish generals. Division of Iraq by sect or ethnicity would clearly exacerbate trends to cooperation while reinforcing community isolation and encouraging xenophobic mistrust of "the others."
 

Iraq's Sunni and Shia Arabs are Iraqi first and pan-Arab last. Arab nationalist sympathies have a long history in Iraq, going back to 1916 when Arabs from Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul provinces abandoned the Ottoman Empire and joined the Great Arab Revolt led by the Amir Faysal (who became King Faysal I of Iraq in 1921) and T.E. Lawrence. But Faysal and that generation of Iraqi leaders worked to create an Iraqi and Arab state. If there was yearning for Pan-Arabism, Saddam quelled it with his personal feud and leadership rivalry with Syrian President Hafiz al-Asad, an enmity that spanned more than 30 years. The Ba'th Party was founded on an ideology of Arabism, nationalism, and social justice but Saddam rewrote the credo to demand loyalty to him. The basis of the Party's popularity in Iraq was that it offered, at least in its early days, a level playing field for all Iraqis, regardless of religion or ethnicity. Kurds, Christians and Shia joined, rejecting Arab nationalism in favor of Saddam's myth of the New Iraqi whose identity and loyalties rose above sect and ethnic differences. Score one for Saddam! A divided Iraq could have the unintended consequence of encouraging the neighbors-Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, even Jordan-to stake out claims to "protect" their compatriots in the new states, much the same as Turkey has claimed the right to protect the Turkmen in northern Iraq.
 

Iraq's Kurds will not confine themselves to their current boundaries. They are already creating (or recreating) new facts on the ground by removing Arabs settled in Kirkuk and other areas of the north as part of Saddam's arabization program. They are challenging Turkmen claims to territory as well and have spoken of historical Kurdish claims to Mosul and beyond Kirkuk City to its oil fields. They call it creating a Kurdistani identity, one that would incorporate non-Kurdish populations living in the north. The Kurds have been self-governing with U.S., British and French over flight protection since 1991. In that time, the Turks continued to mount offensive counter-insurgency operations in northern Iraq. Ankara had as many as 30,000 troops in Iraq at various times to ferret out the anti-Turkish Kurdish party, the PKK. Ankara has "lived" with the Kurdish situation in Iraq not because it accepted it but because we said so. Make no mistake-the Kurds will push for full independence and control of additional territory, and some Turks may even accuse them of backing the recent spate of terrorist attacks against British and Jewish targets in Istanbul.
 

According to Mr. Gelb, the U.S. should pay for implementing his solutions. I, for one, would object to paying for the virtual destruction of Iraq, regional security, and U.S. credibility. Iraq's future is not in the "denied but natural past" that Mr. Gelb has invented. It is more likely in the images of cooperation and a more hopeful future that most Iraqis prefer. And it also lies in what Kanan Makiya describes in his book Cruelty and Silence, in which he suggests that Saddam survived in large part because Iraq's neighbors and the Arab world wanted him to survive. Iraqis, regardless of sect or ethnicity, are not likely to welcome in those it viewed as backing Saddam and having as their agenda a weak Iraq.