The last 65 years have been centrifugal politically. British India became three nations, the French African AOF became eight and the AEF became four. The Central African Federation became three, as did the East African Federation.

None of the other pre- or post-colonial attempts at federation really worked. Nigeria proves the case. Elsewhere, Yugoslavia fell apart as did the whole Soviet Union.

True, some alliances in the third world have succeeded, Asean in particular, but no one is anticipating that the people of Brunei will soon pool their sovereignty, much less their oil, with those of Burma. The European Union is succeeding economically, but last we heard Italians were still Italians.

What then accounts for the peculiar notion that Iraq, that colonial configuration of 82 years ago, should be fought for? There has been, to be sure, a widespread notion that those who have sovereignty - meaning votes at the UN and civil authorities more or less in place at home - should fight to keep their privileged place.

On that ground, the Federal Military Government of Nigeria fought successfully against the Biafran secession. In a few places, plinths of multi-ethnic states like Ghana proved the magnet to keep the former British Togolese Ewe safely within the republic, though mostly unhappily.

But in the case of Iraq the meaningful period of togetherness was merely the bi-product of a savage dictator's rule. The despots and kings who preceded him presided over a not very meaningful unity that had happened to be convenient to British authorities in the twilight of the empire.

The concept of Iraq

Let us ask who among present-day Iraqis attaches himself to the notion of a permanent Iraq. Least of all, of course the Kurds who have run with success a de facto independent state, and only Realpolitik - read Turkish pressure in Washington, for example - keeps the overwhelming desire for independence suppressed.

The Shiites want a theocracy and would be happy to include the rest as long as they can rule overall; as best can be discerned they have little interest in any Iraq that they do not rule.

Perhaps only the Sunni are meaningfully attached to Iraq. After all, they are the only possible beneficiaries. They alternatively become a land-locked loser. Having lorded it over the Shiites using marsh draining and gas, much as they also did to the Kurds, the Sunni Saddamites enjoyed national power and local economic favor.

But they have lost their lord, and they can be permitted to pay the price that losers always pay. Who cares if the minority Sunni becomes a vassal state of the Shiites?

Neighbours have different interests; Iran might see a grand chance to expand, but would be cautious in trying to attach Arab populations to a Farsi nation.

However, Washington might do a balance-of-power deal with Tehran in giving it sway in Basra in return for a little more respect internationally - read nuclear caution. Turkey lacks the leverage that president Ozal had in Bush 41's Washington; Ankara did nothing for the coalition in 2003 and will have to guard its own Kurds accordingly.

Partition

There is of course the price paid when the three groups come apart, and the argument of Partition's cost in 1947 always emerges. India was a far more interpenetrated land than Iraq; Bengal had a Muslim majority in the East, whence joining Muslims in the West in the original Pakistan.

India still has the third - or possibly second - largest Muslim population with mosques ringing out throughout the sub-continent. Lahore had a Muslim majority but was run by Hindus, and the price was ghastly when Mountbatten, pressed by Jinnah, assigned the city to Pakistan.

In any event the lessons of India can be learned from. There need not be a similar bloodbath in Iraq. Baghdad presents a problem, with its large Shiite communities. At the end of the six day war, Israelis said they would keep all of Jerusalem forever, but have become more realistic - at times - about sharing its control, or dividing it up, with Palestine.

A Shiite entity would have to include much of authoritative Baghdad (that's what majority interests are about, right?) with a dividing line in the city's north, if necessary a wall that the Israelis could advise on, where Sunni land began.

Of course this is no longer Washington's nickel. The Prime minister Alawi, a Shiite, wants all of Iraq under his rule. However, what is the evidence from the street? The insurgency gains, the Kurds raise the pressure to complete their independence.

Shiite clerics dominate the south and can work out a plan for civil authority, one hopes more successfully than their neighbors to the East. Sunnis sulk and strike, but once the reality of division became internationally acceptable, Sunni war against their neighbors would be just that - aggression and condemnable, without legitimacy.

A planned American withdrawal, as Edward Luttwak has proposed, would call the bluff of all, and permit the establishment of a true democracy in the old country's north, no worse than a messy tyranny in the center, and more theocracy in the south.

It's a way out, and it's certainly better than what we have now. It is to be hoped that we hear no more of 'nation building' and the prospects of democracy nationwide in a country ready for and interested in neither. It's in accord with the flow of several generations of international history.

SCOTT THOMPSON, an adjunct professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Boston, is a former assistant secretary of state for the Ronald Reagan administration. He also served as Donald Rumsfeld's assistant at the Pentagon in 1975-76. He lives in Bali and Washington DC.