Small War Journal: Proponents of Iraqi partition commonly observe that Iraq is the artificial dividend of French and British diplomats drawing arbitrary lines across their maps in 1919 and 1946. In fact, most Middle Eastern borders that match this description typically divide barren, uninhabited deserts, rather than separating long-standing population groups. Instead, this description applies more aptly to Afghanistan. Given Afghanistan’s status as a patchwork of old imperial frontiers, inhabited by physically and politically disunited ethnic groups, the case for a perpetually unified Afghanistan is weak, whereas the case for resolving Afghanistan’s strategic challenges through partition merits discussion. Click here to read more (external link).