balkanization

Chief of Pakistan's Muttahida Qaumi Movement Altaf Hussain has warned that the United States is planning to partition the country. "We want to save Pakistan. The big powers are casting evil eyes over the country," the MQM leader said in London.

A non-binding resolution that sailed through the U.S. Senate in September 2007 reignited debate over Iraq’s political future. Introduced by Senators Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-DE) and Sam Brownback, (R-KS), the measure calls for a decentralized Iraqi government “based upon the principles of federalism” and advocates for a relatively weak central government with strong Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish regional administrations.

Leslie H. Gelb, former writer for The New York Times, and a senior Defense and State Department official before becoming president of CFR, says the plan to persuade Iraqis to accept a federal form of government is the best way to “maintain harmony” among Iraqi groups. The plan, which he has co-authored with Senator Joseph R. Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was approved with seventy-five votes in favor in a recent nonbinding resolution. But Gelb says it is still not popular among many Arabs who, he says, are used to strong central government.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's divided political leadership, in a rare show of unity, skewered a non-binding U.S. Senate resolution approved in Washington, D.C., last week that endorses the decentralization of Iraq through the establishment of semi-autonomous regions. Also on Sunday, the U.S. Embassy joined the Iraqi politicians - both Shiite and Sunni - in criticizing the resolution. The measure's advocacy of a relatively weak central government and strong Sunni Arab, Shiite and Kurdish regions has touched a nerve in the Iraqi political arena, stoking fears that the United States is planning to partition Iraq.