Case in point is a Huffington blogger who rightly condemns the idea that we should partition Iraq. His main cudgel to condemn this idea is to suggest that the walls built in Baghdad to separate Sunni Arab from Shia areas is part of a secret plan to partition Iraq.
He rightly dumps on the O'Hanlon idea (and others advocate this idea, as well), yet somehow sees a Bush hand in this talk:
Is the government listening? They've already tried to build the Wall.
Ah yes, "the Wall."
This is where the idiocy comes in. The Wall is both a reference to the security barriers that we have erected in Baghdad (the Iraqis did not stop the wall, though there were initial misplaced or self-serving reactions) and to the Israeli barrier built to keep out suicide bombers originating in Palestinian areas.
Even setting aside the ridiculous opposition to an Israeli defensive wall, the Baghdad barriers are simply counter-insurgency 101: You want to interdict the movement of the enemy insurgents. The wall, with access points guarded in order to screen people moving between the sections of Baghdad, prevents free movement of terrorists.
Stupid reasoning. Good conclusion.
Sigh. Ya take what you can get in this environment.
