The Baghdad Wall

[ysengrin]

American military commanders in Baghdad are trying a radical new strategy to quell the widening sectarian violence by building a 12-foot-high, three-mile-long wall separating a historic Sunni enclave from Shiite neighborhoods.

via NY Times (may be behind a pay-wall by the time you see this). Wonder if there will be a push to relocate Sunni into their newly walled ethnic neighborhood.

Comments

[ysengrin.livejournal.com]

I don't believe it will work in the long run - and I seriously doubt it'll work in the short run. "Work" here meaning to quell the sectarian violence as stated in the article.

I don't think that everybody in Baghdad will join hands and sing Kumbaya anytime soon, but setting up facilities to emphasize the differences in culture - and suggesting that the Sunni either need to be isolated or protected - before handing it off to a newly-minted government with a Shiite majority can hardly help the situation. Admittedly, many Sunni boycotting the elections helped lessen their presence in the government, but that's still the way it stands now.