Three in one?

     Picture some super, super power trying to force the United States, Mexico and Cuba to join together as one country.  Better yet, because of the religious ramifications, picture trying to forcibly unite Great Britain, France and Italy at the time of Henry VIII.  I suspect such moves would meet with some justifiable resistance.  Yet that is what we are trying to do to Iraq.  Iraq itself is a Western construct, made up of three distinct religious groups who have no interest at all in forming one country.  There is no rational reason why they should be forced into one country.

     I understand that there are political arguments against dividing Iraq into three countries, most importantly Turkey’s resistance to a Kurdish state.  But I see no better long-term solution that subdividing Iraq into three independent and, I would hope, democratic states.  What is wrong with a three-state solution?