Back in the glorious year of 2003 and the invasion and the following occupation of Iraq there was an answer floating around to all the sectarian violence……partitioning.

The idea was first floated in the media by Sen. Joe Biden…..he stated that this would make all units or factions in the country happy….in essence a power sharing deal for all people.

Later others jumped on the bandwagon as the violence grew and grew..

Now the same type of idea is being floated about the violence in Syria…..

Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama emerged from talks this week predictably far apart on the question of Bashar Al-Assad’s future. Russia wants him to remain as their client, recognising him as the country’s leader. Britain and the US say he will never be accepted by a majority of Syrians, who want him to go. What neither side will countenance is the only feasible option: dividing the country into separate ethno-sectarian cantons.Putin and Obama agree on the need to take on ISIL. But doing so now, when the war has come to be defined as Sunni versus Alawi – and other minorities – will only feed Sunni resentment and bolster the popularity of ISIL. A key first step is to create two arenas: one a coastal strip dominated by Alawis, Christians and sections of the urban middle classes; the other a Sunni zone, much of which is already controlled by opposition groups. Only with a safe and defensible canton will Alawis be willing to see Assad fall. Once the Sunni zone has been established, the West can assist ISIL’s opponents without bolstering Assad or conferring legitimacy on IS.In other words, intervention only becomes possible with the creation of a federal Syria operating under a power-sharing, or consociational, system.

Source: Partition: It’s time to recognise reality in Syria | USAPP

The Partition of Syria is a scenario to end the Syrian Civil War.  It would mean the division of the country along sectarian (religious) and ethnic lines.   The war is viewed of as largely a sectarian conflict.   Russia, the United States, Israel, and other UN representatives have suggested the idea of “federal division” (an effort deemed “Balkanization” President Bashar al-Assad has not ruled out the possibility of a federal democratic state of Syria. The opposition, however, has rejected the offer during negotiations; it has been stated that “dividing Syria is not acceptable at all”, and that a “non-central government” is the right direction. The Kurds, however, are open to the idea.  (wikipedia)

This idea will hold the same outcome as that in Iraq…..the violence will not end and the central government will be unable to govern.

Source: Iran’s Plan B: The Partition of Syria | Middle East Briefing

Then there is the US and their “Plan B…….

US secretary of State John Kerry called for Syria to be partitioned saying it was “Plan B” if negotiations fail.  But in reality this was always plan A. Plans to balkanize Syria, Iraq and other Middle Eastern states were laid out by former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in a 2006 trip to Tel Aviv. It was part of the so called “Project For a New Middle East”. This was a carbon copy of the Odid Yinon plan drawn up by Israel in 1982. The plan outlined the way in which Middle Eastern countries could be balkanized along sectarian lines. This would result in the creation of several weak landlocked micro-states that would be in perpetual war with each other and never united enough to resist Israeli expansionism.

“Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi’ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan… ” Oded Yinon, “A strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties”,

Source: John Kerry’s Plan to Balkanize Middle East Countries. The Partition of Syria “if Negotiations Fail” | Global Research – Centre for Research on Globalization

Personally I do not believe that this, the partitioning of Syria, is the answer to this problem……I think it will create more hard feelings than there exists today.