Les Gelb, former chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Carter administration diplomat, recently revived a debate he and then-Senator Joe Biden began almost a decade ago when they suggested dividing Iraq along ethnic and sectarian lines. While I have no problem with Kurdish independence should they so choose (for Kurdish leaders like Barzani, however, nationalism has always been more a rhetorical tool than a sincerely held belief), the Gelb plan to divide Iraq into Shi‘ite Arab, Sunni Arab, and Kurdish zones is as bad an idea now as it was then. It will create a host of new problems, all the while failing to resolve the old ones.

That does not mean, however, that federalism isn’t the solution. As I wrote yesterday in Commentary, not all federalisms are the same. Just as I wrote in The New York Times back in 2002 and in a book chapter from the same year, the way forward is decentralization along administrative lines. That doesn’t disempower the Kurds—they can still form their own grouping and enjoy the same autonomy—but it does mean an Iraq of 15 or 18 regions rather than just three. Just as in the United States, decentralization and investing power in states can be a path to liberty and a defense against the tyranny of the center.

While it will take military action to defeat the Islamic State, in the aftermath of any future victory, it will be necessary to renegotiate the Iraqi compact. And as I continue to travel to Iraq to talk with Shi‘ites, Kurds, Sunnis and Sunni insurgents (the latter in Jordan), it seems that decentralizing and diluting the power of the central government –limiting it largely to foreign affairs, supervision of national resources like oil, and defense–and instead investing that power in the sub-districts, districts, or provinces is not only the way forward, but a formula which can restore stability.

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