If Iraq fragments, what's Plan B?

Other experts, including Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, have been increasingly vocal in calling for the US to help Iraqis resettle in areas of safety.

"We've got to provide them the means, the protection, and the funds to set up a new life," said Mr. Gelb in a recent National Public Radio interview. "We owe them that."

Resettled refugees might, in the end, blame America for their plight. The US could be accused of abetting ethnic cleansing. All plausible, says O'Hanlon of Brookings – but the problem is, the ethnic cleansing is happening anyway. The question, therefore, is really a humanitarian one: How to save lives?

In a recent piece titled "A Bosnia Option for Iraq," published in the journal American Interest and co-authored with Edward Joseph, a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University, O'Hanlon proposes a "soft partition" of Iraq.

The war in Bosnia ended only after 200,000 civilians died and half the country's population had fled their homes, says the article. Ethnic relocation may be distasteful, but with Sunni insurgents and Shiite death squads now attacking even hospitals and schools, what is the alternative?

"If US and Iraqi forces cannot protect civilians, there is little moral dilemma about facilitating their movement to safer areas," says the article.

The Iraqi government would have to offer housing and jobs for those resettled, as well as protection while moving, according to the article. Government property commissions could help Sunnis and Shiites swap homes.

The key to making the relocation work might be a division of oil money. It should be split a number of ways, the article says, with individuals, provinces, and the overall government receiving allocations.

"The Bosnia option has a much higher chance of success than anything resembling current strategy ... although I can still see the case for one last big push [with more US troops]," says O'Hanlon.

Other experts say that a surge in troops will serve a purpose only if tied to a comprehensive approach of bringing stability and security to Iraq.

The problem now is not just troop levels or stability in Baghdad, says Anthony Cordesman, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in a new study.

"The 'threat' from the insurgency and militias is only part of the problem," writes Mr. Cordesman. "Iraq's central government is weak and the nation is steadily dividing into sectarian and ethnically controlled areas."

Thus any new military effort should be accompanied by a further push to create incentives for peaceful coexistence, according to Cordesman – or peaceful separation where there is not a credible alternative. The US should "provide aid to relocation when this is the only option," writes the CSIS scholar.

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