It's all very well being negative and critical about the mess that Iraq has become. But the Iraqis desperately need a solution to the anarchy and chaos now prevailing. As you are a historian of the region would you propose returning it to its pre-First War borders, and if so how woud you deal with the ownerhsip of oil?
--Sue Twinthorn

A most germane question Sue, but not difficult to answer - for me at any rate, tough I suspect it might tie Messrs Bush and Blair in knots. First I would commend unconditional withdrawal from Iraq - and from Afghanistan for that matter. We were not invited in and we have no cause to lay down conditions for going. Before leaving, however, we should make it clear that the 1920/21 settlement was illegal in its inclusion of Kurdistan (the Ottoman district of Mosul)in the new Iraq. In other words, Iraq- Kurdistan should be declared a separate, independent state, and its people, along with the people of Iraq, should be invited to take part in UN sponsored elections to decide the future of Iraq as it was in former times (from the Gulf coastline to Samarra), and the former region of Mosul, as separate entities or as a united state.
--HVF Winstone
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