In short, once any state or becomes federal (or confederal), it's international relations will not be driven simply according to "unitary state theory"-which has dominated American foreign policy for centuries.
At this junction in history, federative solutions are ever-more necessary as the "unitary state actor paradigm" of international relations continues to (a) crumble or (b) evolve into multi-lateral paradigms in this 3rd millennium. [Regional political historians and experts of the Middle East have to admit that even in officially centrist Saudi Arabia, the emirate system-a federative approach to governance-- is alive and strong within its borders and among the tribes and families dictating governance there Similar structures exist or have been developing in other regional states, too.)
CURRENTLY
Now, ongoing U.S. and Middle Eastern speculations are irrelevant as to whether Iraq (1) will collapse into multiple countries, (2) will remain unified and federal, or (3) will be taken over eventually by a new regional strong man.
The fact is, by choosing to build (and in the U.S.' case-strongly support a federal solution in Iraq--) the Iraqi peoples and their representative have opened their nation to federal solutions. It is time to seize the day by educating one another in the region about all of the workable alternatives to civil war that a federal structure can imply.
Federal states and nations can be quite robust in the long term-whether or not neighboring unitary and autocratic states like Turkey, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria or Iran recognize federative potential for future security or not. The U.S. in Iraq has already a strong positive link with the Kurdish region. It is up to the U.S. to throw all of its effort into building a positive relationship with the other regional actors and regional tribes and governments.
The most important fact for U.S. federal and foreign policy to recognize is that federal states almost never go to war with each other.
Second, federal states-either autocratic or democratic ones-(as long as they remain federal) will tend to become more democratic over the long term or they will simply become de-facto centralized states as were the Soviet Union and Pakistan when they were federative nations.
The only negative caveat is that some weaker federal states tend to fall into civil war.
On the other hand, stronger federal states, like Switzerland and Canada never fall into civil war.
Further, the history of the United States has included consistent positive impulses to renewing federalism--often in the wake of centrist government-led imperialistic misadventures abroad. Recall how the debacle of the Vietnam War helped lead to calls for greater federal balance and stronger balance between the branches of governance in the U.S.A. starting in the early to mid-1970s.
Similarly, Germany re-embraced federalism in the late 1940s after the Nazi-centrists under Hitler step-by-step totally ridded both German and Austrian governments of federalism throughout the 1930s.
Finally, having federations fall apart is not always a bad thing. Two recent examples of this include the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1991-1992 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in that same period.
In conclusion, both Gulf Arabs and Americans need to discuss the positive aspects of building federal states, just as members of the European have been doing for nearly 60 years. Perhaps, they could even invite their Persian and Turkish neighbors to such a table eventually.
Meanwhile, not only do I look forward to us all getting under a big tent and agreeing as to how both democracy and the promotion of positive aspects of federalism can solve not only problems in Iraq or the Middle East. I am also looking forward to the day when Americans, Canadians, and Mexicans can demand a federal approach to cross border relations and NAFTA-in contrast to the current centrist or top-down approach we have had to date.
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