WI: The US made Iraq recognise Israel as part of the invasion?

Eh... Iraq maybe not. It offers a pretty clean three-way break, plus, maybe ceding some bits to the neighbors.

Kurds get the Northern bit - be sure to include not just the Kurdish max claims, but the Assyrian bits near Ninevah - the Kurds have aways been the one group that got along with all the various groups that called it home, especially pre-ISIS. Better yet, give them as much as the northern oil fields around Tikrit as possible.

A giant chunk of the Sunni majority West goes can either be another Sunni Arab republic, or given to Jordan. More likely a combination of both.

A chunk of the South, especially the bits inhabited by the Marsh Arabs? Kuwait. They've had a claim on the area forever, they've been a faithful US ally, similar ethnic and religious mix, and they've got more money than god to spent on developing/integrating it. Plus, perfect karma for Sadam's attempt to do the reverse. Plus, not like Kuwait will complain about more oil fields.

What you're left with is a majority Shitte Iraqi rump state centered mostly on Baghdad. Frankly, if the Iranian's want to puppet this last bit, they can feel free.

Boom, you've beefed up two of our main allies in the region, created a third with the Kurds, and the new borders match political/religious/geopolitical lines much better than the abomination created by Sykes-Picot.
And then the Kurds in Syria, Turkey, and Iran will want to join their brothers in an all-Kurd state, and the region explodes into an ethnic war that leaves thousands dead. Yeah "much better".

Iraq, as the modern entity, may not have been around that long, but the territory of Mesopotamia has been around since Babylonian times. There is some sense of Iraq as a geographic entity, if not necessarily an ethnic one. Destroying that would leave a mess of squabbling microstates and inflated countries that aren't equipped to handle the influx of more Iraqis. The Marsh Arabs would see themselves as Iraqis and wouldn't accept Kuwaiti rule. And trust me when I say Jordan isn't at all ready to take in 8+ million Iraqis, especially considering many of them would join ISIS in later years. Plus, the Saudi east coast - where 80% of their oil is, mind - is heavily Shi'ite. You want them to get influenced by that big Shi'ite state up north? The Saudis will have a revolt on their hands (which they'll crush as always) but it would be a constant bleeding wound in Saudi Arabia's side and a source of increased tensions with Tehran.

The Sykes-Picot agreement messed up the region, but any attempt to 'fix' it further is short-sighted butchery.
 

longsword14

Banned
Lots of funf making new countries on a map. Not so much fun implmenting it.
That is not it.
People talk a lot about Sykes-Picot as if it randomly divided the place, then blame it for everything that followed.
1. It took ethnic composition in account to find a reasonable solution.
2. Post war it was not implemented.

Combining 1 and 2 should answer the relevance of Sykes-Picot today.
 
Sykes-Picot never got implemented as envisioned.
Oh good because proper implementation of the attempt to carve up the Middle East along the original plan's lines would have been so much better.

It doesn't really make much of a difference between proper or improper implementation. In the end, we have a large area cut up between spheres of influence in an expansion of existing colonial empires.
 

longsword14

Banned
Oh good because proper implementation of the attempt to carve up the Middle East along the original plan's lines would have been so much better.
You don't get my point.
People going on about "ethnic composition" seem to forget that S-P did take it into consideration. If that is not good enough then neither is anything else.
 
Istr that some columnist (possibly William Safire but it's been a long time) confidently predicted that "The first act of a free Iraq will be to recognise Israel". What world could he have been living in?
 
You don't get my point.
People going on about "ethnic composition" seem to forget that S-P did take it into consideration. If that is not good enough then neither is anything else.

Colonialism and imperialism are pretty difficult to justify in the first place. Ethnic identity is often fluid and difficult to understand by outsiders, thus any agreement imposed by imperial powers is unlikely to succeed.
 

longsword14

Banned
Colonialism and imperialism are pretty difficult to justify in the first place.
Irrelevant to the question of partition.
Ethnic identity is often fluid and difficult to understand by outsiders, thus any agreement imposed by imperial powers is unlikely to succeed.
Yes, but "insiders" themselves are the ones who have made a mess of the place. People just find it convenient to blame something from decades ago that never went into effect.
 
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