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Letter: U.S. repeating mistakes of Britain in Iraq

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 | 7:16 a.m.

One of the worst blunders from the 1919 post-World War I Paris Peace Conference was Britain's arrogant and arbitrary scheme of carving up the defeated Ottoman Empire by establishing new countries and borders without regard to the locations of diverse ethnic and religious groups. The result was throwing several ancient enemies together and hoping that they would, or could, forge the new nation of Iraq.

History is unfortunately repeating itself as the United States foolishly attempts to force its "vision" on Sunnis and Shiites who would rather kill one another and the Western do-gooders than sit down and form a semblance of a democratic government or the rule of law. We should have the historical perspective and courage to admit that as an unwanted outsider our prospects for successful nation building in Iraq now are as dim as were our prospects in Vietnam and Kosovo.

But since as a country we are obviously lacking in that regard, we should instead embrace the idea of supporting an independent Kurdistan mentioned in Thomas Friedman's July 3 column. It might provide some justification for our ill-advised venture, not to mention rectify Britain's nearly 90-year-old mistake.

Erven T. Nelson, Las Vegas

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